


A Creekmas Carol

by Amzzz358



Category: South Park
Genre: Christmas, Inspired by A Christmas Carol, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 17:01:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4674458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amzzz358/pseuds/Amzzz358
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A really old piece I'm posting to wrap my head around this website.<br/>It's so old, but maybe there are people in the world who won't find it as cringey as I do. Maybe.<br/>A somewhat creek version of a Christmas carol, where Craig takes our lead role as Scrooge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stave 1

Stripe was dead. Nothing more, nothing less. There was absolutely no way to deny it, and no other way to say it. Craig had even organised a small funeral for him, attended by his parents and younger sister. Stripe had, in fact, been dead since Craig's tenth Christmas. Coincidently, that had been the year leading up to Craig and Ruby's parents' divorce. It hadn't been a great year. But, either way, Stripe was dead. As a doornail, I guess.

Well, I mean, you would have thought that a coffin-nail would be the deadest nail you could get. But hey, not much I can do about that. Meaning that Stripe was (probably) as dead as a doornail.

Craig was one of few who knew about Stripe's death. Most of the town were confident in the knowledge that Craig's pet was still a part of the living world. Most even liked to refer to him as Craig's only friend, although few (Eric Cartman) had a slightly more explicit claim.

Unfortunately, it must be understood that Stripe was dead, otherwise…. Well, this story would be pretty pointless.

Craig never got rid of Stripe's cage; he just left it stood on his windowsill, far too lazy to move it. And- as Craig's bedroom was located at the front of the house where it could be seen from the main road (or at least, his curtains and anything on his windowsill could be)- it was excusable that people assumed Stripe was still alive.

However, assumptions had always annoyed Craig, along with quite a few other things, so he felt justified in becoming overly annoyed on Thursday morning. The snow hadn't improved his mood, and neither had the loud, excited buzz from the students surrounding him in his Business Studies class. The fact that it was Christmas Eve definitely hadn't improved his mood, though not for the same reason it upset his peers. He really didn't care when their holidays started, it would be a two week break however he looked at it. Besides which, he didn't even want to go on the damn holiday in the first place, he could get so much more work done while at school.

"Hey Craig, Kenny!" an annoyingly female voice spoke up from behind the two boys sat together working on their school project, unlike the rest of the morons in this class, Craig noted. That meant he'd have to turn around to hear the news he had no doubt he wouldn't want to know about. Looking behind him he saw Wendy standing slightly in front of an almost bored looking Stan, holding a bucket. Craig mentally groaned. At least the pair of them weren't holding hands or being mushy, which lead to the slight advantage that they were at the friends stage of their little cycle. If they'd been a couple he would've verbally groaned.

"Hey guys, we're doing a collection for-" Craig switched off, while Kenny listened attentively with a slightly guilty expression on his face. The idiots. They should know that Kenny couldn't afford whatever it was they were selling, and he'd just feel guilty and upset for the rest of the day now. And a sad Kenny meant his work on the project would probably suffer, meaning that Craig was being hurt in the process. It was just selfish of them, really.

As soon as the noise from Wendy's mouth had stopped, Craig turned back to writing small notes down over a pad of paper that was already almost black with ink.

"So?" Wendy spoke again, and Craig winced. She sounded…. Affronted, and had no right to be.

"So what?" he didn't look up from his work, but he could hear that Kenny and Stan had started up a separate conversation quietly in the background. If he wasn't busy trying to ignore Wendy he would've considered yelling at Kenny.

"Are you gonna donate anything?"

"Oh, that's what you were whining about. No, I'm not."

She reeled back a little, as though she'd been smacked by his nasally tone, but recovered almost immediately "Why not? You'd be doing a really great thing!"

"And?" he still didn't look away from the table, cutting her off.

Wendy changed her approach. "Look Craig, I know you've got more than enough money to-"

He looked up at her, glaring "Do I? Money doesn't just appear, you know. I'm not gonna give it to you for no good reason."

"But it is for a good reason! You've got a pet, haven't you? Stripe, I remember when you brought him in for show and tell in second grade, he was so cute! You wouldn't want him to be alone, starving and cold on Christmas, would you? Why would you let anoth-"

Craig raised his eyebrow as he cut her off yet again. "Wouldn't really change anything. He's dead."

Wendy's eyes widened just as the bell went off, and cheers filled the room from the other students. Craig made a noise in the back of his throat in annoyance.

"Craig, I'm so sorry, I didn't reali-"

"Whatever, I don't care. Look, nice rant there, you can totally tell you're on the discussion board against fat-ass every week. So why don't you just go back to acting like you don't wanna fuck him and I'll go back to acting like you don't exist." He turned away from Wendy again, but not before he missed her expression. The mix of shock and hatred had him almost amused. She too turned with a vicious swoosh of her skirt, and he heard her stomp away, leaving Stan to deal with Kenny.

"So…. Uh, you guys paying or….?" Craig didn't bother to turn from the project this time, allowing Kenny to shrug and pull out his empty pockets. In the corner of his eye he saw Kyle pause an argument against fat-ass on Jews "ruining Christmas" as they were walking past with their coats and bags on to dump some more change in the bucket.

"Here, I'll pay for him," he said.

"Aw dude, you don't have to, it'll make me feel bad."

Craig could've sworn Kyle grinned at Kenny, but he wasn't looking properly and didn't care to ask. "Don't worry about it, it's better than Wendy getting yelled at for no reason." As if sensing that Craig was about to turn on him, Kyle hurriedly continued. "Anyway, we'll meet you outside," and left with Cartman and Stan, all three knowing Craig wouldn't let Kenny go yet.

The empty classroom fell into silence as the last three boys left.

"So, uh…. When were you planning on going home?" Craig sighed. He had been planning to stay for about another hour, but he figured that Kenny wouldn't work well if he wanted to be elsewhere. He ignored Kenny's question in favour of pulling on his blue jacket and swinging his rucksack onto his shoulders after filling it with his work.

"I suppose you wont be helping me with this tomorrow?" he didn't bother to look and see if Kenny was following him, he didn't care.

The blonde, now with his hood pulled up but without his mouth covered by his scarf so he could still be heard, opened his mouth as if to say "dude, its Christmas" in a chirpy voice, but thought better of the reaction Craig would give, and so said "If it's cool with you, that'd be great."

"No, it's not 'cool'," Craig narrowed his eyes "but I guess you'll just have to make up for it the day after."

Kenny sighed a little, and chose to change the subject "Hey, that Wendy thing, you shouldn't get too worked up over it. We all kinda figured Stripe was still stuck up there, hobbling along with a little Zimmer frame and all," He chuckled a little till Craig shot him an icy glare.

"Didn't you see him up in animal heaven on your weekly visits? You spend enough time there. Time is money, Kenny, so it's no wonder you're poor really, is it?" the blonde's eyes narrowed.

"You know for a minute there I honestly thought you were gonna pull a funny."

They continued their journey to the school's exit without talking, as Kenny had long since learnt that Craig preferred silence to spoken word. The blonde held the door open for Craig, knowing his life would be more pleasant than if he let the other do it or, God forbid, imply that Craig should hold the door for him. He started off in the direction of where his three best friends were waiting.

"What time do I have to be at yours then?" the hooded boy called over his shoulder to the darkly clad figure who had begun travelling across the school courtyard towards the road.

"Nine. No later."

Just before he pulled his scarf over his mouth Kenny called "And if I die?"

"Move in with Stripe, coz you'll be spending a lot more time up there." Kenny turned away from Craig so he could roll his eyes a little. If the guy wasn't such an asshat he could've been pretty funny. The blonde continued to the group of people he was aiming for, tugging at the scarf Kyle had given him for Christmas a few years ago. He smirked, knowing it annoyed his friends when his speech was muffled. He still covered the lower half of his face though, because he secretly enjoyed having a few people in his life who could always understand him.

Craig, meanwhile, continued on his journey towards the road, kicking at the mush around his feet. He was just turning his sister's old ipod onto the soundtrack to red-racer (he could've easily afforded a new one but refused to spend money when this one worked perfectly well. It was bad enough he kept having to buy new headphones to drown out the screams of little bratty children) when Clyde ran over to him from his group of friends.

"Hey Craig!" the brunette called, "have a good Christmas!"

"Hah! Whatever." Craig returned, turning to watch the joy in Clyde's eyes fall, and felt a feeling similar to glee at the idea that the stupid boy might cry. Clyde had stopped in his run towards where Craig now stood, impatiently waiting for a sign that he'd upset the other.

"'Whatever?' Okay then, I was just trying to be nice," Clyde shrugged, and turned to head back to his friends, and Craig saw with a streak of whiny annoyance that Clyde's face, although red-raw from the extra cold wind that winter had brought to South Park, was still sporting a cheerful smile. Craig grit his teeth and frowned.

"Oh, go to hell."

Craig was rewarded with a surprised glance and the hint of a flashing glare.

"Jesus, dude, I'll never get why you're so rude to everyone all the time, all I wanted was to tell you that you're still welcome to go Token's party tomorrow."

Craig rolled his eyes. "Don't make me laugh," was all he said, before flipping him off and telling him where to go again. He left Clyde imagining the boy feeling stupid, although deep down he knew the other would continue on with his good day, restarting the song he'd missed almost half of now that he'd had to rip his earphones out to insult Clyde.

The Red Racer soundtrack made up the only ten songs the black haired teen kept on the ipod. He'd grown bored of the music he knew a while ago, and there was no way he'd listen to new music just to end up spending money on it.

By the time the song had started to get going, Craig could finally no longer see the school or any of the annoying fools he had to share the building with on a daily basis. They'd mostly be at home or out at the park, sledging and skating. Craig knew that Kenny had mentioned something to Kyle about his sled breaking, and Kyle replying that they could share his sled as he needed some extra weight if he was gonna beat fatass before class had started.

A heavy fog had settled about South Park, making the atmosphere less crisp and colder due to the added dampness of the air. People had begun to rush about now, trying to move from shop to shop in record beating time to avoid the biting cold. He could see Stan's parents in one shop, amid the mad rush of insane present and food buyers. He expected they had all of the Christmas prep sorted, and Randy Marsh had insisted they go out to buy a peach or something ridiculous like that just for fuss and attention. Craig was becoming increasingly irritated with this behaviour- if they all absolutely had to play a part in this ridiculous farce of Christmas, why did they all leave it to the last minute to buy presents and food?- which the people walking by seemed to pick up on and managed to avoid risking contact with the boy.

He glowered at the floor and scuffed his shoes a little as though it would make the people around him disappear and his house move closer towards him. He tightened the flaps of his chullo into a tight knot under his chin and pulled the collar of his jacket up around his face in an attempt to block the cold that was starting to make his ears and cheeks ache.

He was at least grateful for his headphones when he turned a corner onto the last snow-covered street of shops on his walk from school and walked straight into a group of carol singers. Or at least, that was what he assumed they were; they could've just been a small group of brats flapping their mouths open and closed like a nest full of hungry birds for all he knew, he couldn't hear a thing from them.

He pushed through the group, uncaring of their disagreements and distress. He'd shot a glare at a black haired, short kid who reminded him of Kyle, though they looked nothing alike.

The cold that settled around them had become intense now, and Craig was glad he was only two roads away from where he lived. He ignored the goth kids who were huddled together for warmth on a small bench outside of the graveyard that they usually occupied whenever a service was being held. He'd long since learnt that no matter how much he hated them and their money consuming habits, they usually had a worse opinion on the words 'joy" and "festive", and it was usually better to leave them be at this time of year. Especially as he was pretty sure the little one had a knife.

He could hear a clock chime as he tore out the headphones in his ears and pushed open his front door. His mother was in the kitchen at the sink, and seemed content enough at his response to her greeting that she ignored his lack of response to her generic "how was your day?". Ruby was probably in the living room watching TV, but he didn't care enough to check.

He walked up the stairs and towards his room, ignoring how it seemed to become colder and gloomier as he was sucked towards his room.

Craig could still remember how excited his parents had been when he'd shown an interest in filming and movies, his mother for the wonder of a child expressing their creativity and his father for the longing of having a child who could possibly grow up to become famous. However, the last few years must have been quite disappointing for them, as Craig had all but cast his imagination away from himself. Interestingly enough, he hadn't thought about Stripe, aside from that morning, since the hamster had died, neither in imagination or memory.

So he was not expecting to find the small hamster wrapped around his door handle.

He stopped with his hand still outstretched and blinked quickly. When his eyes had opened again the doorknob had turned back to it's plain, ordinary self. He knelt down and took a closer look at the handle, squinting slightly. Nothing, just a door handle. He shook his head and scoffed at himself, stretching his legs and opening the door to walk into his room.

From habit Craig turned the key in the door to lock himself in, then paused before turning away. He reached up and pulled the small bolt at the top of his door across. In time, he'd almost forgotten that that was there.

As he turned he thought he saw Stripe's old hamster ball rolling along his bedroom floor, but ignored it for lack of any other way to react.

He threw his coat onto a hanger in his wardrobe after pushing his bag to lie just under his desk. He pretended that he didn't give both areas a quick scan for hamsters or anything out of the ordinary, but everything was in its appropriate place.

It was getting dark out, but Craig refused to turn the light on- he was practicing money saving in any way he could for when he was able to leave the care of his parents- and he pulled the curtains his mother must've opened earlier when cleaning shut for privacy. He pointedly ignored the hamster cage on the sill more so than usual. Walking towards the couch he grabbed the TV remote from its space on the arm of the chair and pushed two or three buttons to get the TV on and the DVD drive working. The Red Racer disk was already in the DVD player.

Several hours and seven episodes of ignoring the presence of a rodent which hadn't been there the last twelve times he'd watched this disk later, Craig paused the DVD and wondered downstairs to make himself a dinner of leftover pasta. The house was deathly silent, and he assumed his mother had taken Ruby out for some sort of Christmassy celebration.

Grabbing a bowl he poured the pasta and sauce he'd taken from the fridge onto it and covered it in Clingfilm which had the necessary holes poked into it. Craig set the microwave to spin for twenty seconds, enough time for the pasta to gain a little heat without wasting precious energy or money, and leant against the worktop behind him.

He found his eyes were drawn to the microwave, and he couldn't tear his eyes away as he listened to it hum. It was like seeing a bright light when you were tired, he wanted to look away, but it was easier to just stare and slip away a little.

The machine was silent for a full second, going back to the now painful silence the house was sat in before it began to beep shrilly at him to remove the food.

Craig started at the noise, and went to get the food. The loud beeping continued as he rushed to sort his food out so he could turn it off. The urgency of the beeping caused him to forget that it wasn't supposed to beep once the food was out, and he frowned once he realised this, pushing several buttons to make it shut up. Nothing happened, the noise could've even grown in volume, and he realised the infernal thing was broken.

Craig was grateful it wasn't him who had to buy a new microwave, and reached towards the plug. He pulled it out with some relief, fancying the noise had stopped till the next beep met his ears. He looked from the disconnected plug to the microwave screen in horror, dropping the plug and backing away.

He jumped a little as his lower back connected with the oven, which began to join the microwave in it's beeping. He leapt away, and ripped the phone in the pocket to his jeans out. It had began to buzz and what seemed to be his ring tone started playing as he stared at it with equal horror to what he'd given the microwave and oven. He threw his mobile to the ground, but knew it would continue to play even though the battery had fallen out and the screen was now cracked.

Slowly other beeps and ringing started up around him, the alarm of the digital clock, his mother's old pager, he could hear the house phone through the kitchen wall, even the kettle joined in with the song. And, with a final start of dread, the fire alarm began whining at him.

He stared at his food dumbly for a second, searching for the giveaway sign of smoke or even flames. Maybe the beeping from everything that was still ongoing was a sign of fire? He'd never heard of anything like that. It suddenly hit Craig that he should probably get the fuck out.

"Fuckshit," he hissed though his teeth, and turned to run for the kitchen door. The pasta was knocked to the floor in the process. Once he reached the door it slammed shut in front if him. He grabbed the handle, and leant backwards with all his weight once it didn't open normally, not caring if he fell over when-or if- it ever did open. His eyes widened when he heard and felt the lock click under his hands. Craig slunk down to the floor, his arms clinging around his bony frame, and he slowly slunk backward until he was huddled up against the wall, muttering swearwords and knowing he would die soon. He wondered if the neighbours could hear the fire alarm, but they'd probably seen his mother and Ruby leave and wouldn't want to save him. Despite his lack of imagination, he was sure he was about to be eaten by the spawn of Satan that South Park had picked out to be tormented by today. He was stuck here; unable to hear when the monster would arrive to have him for dinner.

He didn't want to be eaten. Maybe it was just Damien coming for a visit? But Damien was a lot subtler than this, preferring to sneak up on people and make them jump at the last second.

He screwed up his eyes and covered over his ears with his hands, pushing his knuckles into his ears till it hurt. The corner would protect him. He felt like a little kid again, hiding from shouting and screams, only he didn't have Ruby with him now. All he could make out through the screaming alarms and beeps was a tiny, familiar bell.

There was a brilliant flash of white-blue light behind his eyelid and his eyes flew open in sync with the door smashing into the kitchen wall and Craig found himself staring into the face of the horror that had been threatening him. It was stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the hall light.

Stripe. The hamster. Complete with a little miniature chullo Craig had made him several years ago.

Well, Craig supposed it made sense if you thought about the creepy shit he'd been seeing all afternoon. He waved a little, slowly, unsure how he felt about his dead pet paying him a visit. Stripe journeyed over to him, his feet moving in an almost rolling motion that was so very familiar to Craig.

The hamster stopped in front of him and twitched his head to the side as though he was contemplating Craig. The boy dampened his dry lips and silently asked what would happen next. He noted the small gold collar locked around Stripe's neck and felt a small stab of jealousy at the idea that someone had gained ownership from his pet, until he noticed the ball and chain connected to the collar next to a little bell that Stripe had always worn.

The little four-legged animal was almost completely clear to look through, and Craig wondered if he'd always had the lack of organs he was displaying now.

Craig didn't believe in ghosts.

"What d'you want then?" now that his life didn't seem to be under immediate threat he felt safe to return to being sarcastic and cynical. The hamster ignored him, and turned to walk back out of the door.

Craig got up and decided he'd clear up the spilt pasta once the vision he was having ended with Stripe's exit. "Oh. Alright then. Just piss of after you've broken everything why don't you." It reminded him of one summer holiday where they came home to find Stripe had somehow escaped from his cage and nibbled Craig's room to shreds. Craig wondered how the creature had escaped it's cage, before remembering that it had been Tweek Tweak's responsibility to come over and feed the animal, and Tweek Tweak who had left the cage door open in case Stripe needed to escape during the animal apocalypse. Silly boy, Craig thought to himself, I really am better without having to look out for him all the time. They had parted on good terms, too, which was a good deal for Twee-

Stripe began squeaking loudly at Craig as the other turned his back on him. The boy groaned and faced the other. "Whaaaaat? Can't you just leave already? It was nice seeing you and all, but you're done freaking me out, you can leave now."

The hamster continued to squeak at him and Craig was tempted to shoo him away. He offered him some bread, as they no longer kept hamster food in the house, but Stripe seemed to glare at him. With a final sigh Craig decided he'd probably just have to live with a hamster annoying him for the rest of his life. Worse things had happened in South Park.

He returned to the pasta, but found that Stripe was now chewing onto his trouser leg, making an attempt to stop him from moving, which actually seemed to be working as Craig found he couldn't move his right leg any more. There was a strange, numbing coldness spreading though his trousers into his skin. He shrieked at the hamster, almost freaked out, but certain he was more annoyed, "What the hell d'you want?"

Stripe let go of his grip and tumbled over to the door again. Craig grunted with frustration.

"Fine then. Let's go over here. I bet you feel soooo much better now. Oh, you want to go outside the kitchen, huh? Well isn't that nice." Stripe ignored Craig's attempt at offending the hamster, either from practice, or because he couldn't actually understand what the other was saying.

When they reached the stairs Craig spent a few moments in a tantrum gaining a little satisfaction from the way Stripe struggled to climb the stairs. He'd made it up almost two of the steps when Craig got bored and uncrossed his arms, snatching up his pet. He ignored the cold spreading across the palm of his hand as the climbed the stairs. It didn't seem so strong now anyhow.

"We're going to my room. I don't care what you have to say to that." His arm remained mobile and at the same temperature, so he supposed his room was where Stripe wanted to go.

Once he opened the door of his room he wondered what he could do next. Looking around, he frowned once he realised he'd have to open the curtains to get the cage out. He pulled the door to the cage open and dropped Stripe in, non-too lightly, before moving the cage to his desk and snapping the offending curtains shut. Stripe scurried over to his hamster wheel, and happily began scampering over it while Craig threw himself into his desk chair and wondered if they had wheels in hamster hell/heaven.

Once stripe was done catching up with his old friend the wheel, he trotted over to look up at Craig. The boy raised his eyebrows without moving any other part of his body, and the hamster tilted his head as though he was accusing Craig of not believing in him.

He leant forward onto the desk and crossed his arms, his subconscious trying to make him be intimidating towards the hamster. "No, you're right, I don't believe in you. And why should I? You've seen all of the freaky shit that happens here. You could easily be some vision sent by aliens, or Tweek's underpants gnomes, or even our parents, for Christ's sake. Or maybe you're just a dream. Either way, you'll be gone by tomorrow, and I don't intend to make Christmas even worse than it already is by following you to Peru, or something. Oh, and if Kenny or Cartman, or someone like that sent you, you can tell them I'm gonna kick the- OW!"

While he'd been ranting, Stripe had taken the opportunity to dart out of his cage- which Craig had left open in a sign of their old companionship and also because he was secretly a little scared of having a hamster ghost stuck in his room- and had sunk his teeth deep into the flesh of Craig's hand.

The black haired boy stared at his now bloody hand in slight horror, wondering how a ghost could bite him before the pain struck. His arm stung as though he'd been pierced with poisoned ice, and he clutched his at hand in slight agony, the numbness from earlier spreading from his arm, and tried not to writhe about onto the floor.

"Okay." He spoke though clenched teeth and eyes screwed shut. "I believe you. Or at least that you're not a dream."

The pain receded a little, and then all at once left his arm. He opened his eyes, and Stripe was back in the cage, calmly sat in his wheel. As Craig blinked he could've sworn the hamster rolled his eyes.

"Why are you here?"

The hamster looked at him for a second with his black eyes, before dashing out of the cage and onto the desk. Craig sighed in frustration as Stripe began to scuttle around the desk in what seemed to be aimless circles, though if Craig looked closely he would've noticed the hamster appeared to be searching for something. He finally settled on a copy of the book Craig had been reading for an English essay his class had to write over the holidays, A Christmas Carol. Apparently it was more fun if the book was Christmassy, though Craig had strongly disagreed. He'd been the only one to do so, though, as the other fools were only interested in watching a Christmas-themed film in class.

Craig sighed, once again. "Okay. So you're sat on a book. Great. Hey- don't nibble that, it's not mine, and I am not paying the school just coz you're hungry." He tried to pick the hamster up, but Stripe simply clung to the book with his teeth. Craig popped him back onto the book.

"Okay, so you clearly developed an a attachment to that book then. Didja meet Dickens, or something?" the hamster fixed him with a stare that almost told Craig he was an idiot. Then he began to look repeatedly from Craig to the book, scratching at the cover when he looked down.

"What? You want me to read it again?" the ball and chain strung to Stripe's collar seemed to become more opaque, and as he looked, he noticed a chain developing around the body of his hamster, becoming more visible the closer he looked. Stripe jumped off of the book as Craig slowly reached towards it, and scuttled back to the comfort of his cage.

Craig picked up the book and allowed it to fall open. He felt a slight gust of cold air from the hamster cage that turned a few more pages for him. He picked up the book.

"It is required of every man," the ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world-"

The book fell from Craig's hands and onto the desk with a thud.

"No. No way. I am not going to play a part in a modern day Christmas freaking Carol." He glared at Stripe who blinked back. "No!" his fist slammed onto the desk, causing everything to jump up and land noisily. Stripe just stared as Craig began to rant about ridiculous spectres, things not being his fault, and having stuff to do. He was adamant that he was nothing like Scrooge when a strange feeling hit him and he chocked on his words, falling back into his seat.

He clutched at his hair as he struggled to breathe, his chest being crushed and pulled tightly at as though someone was wrapping tight cloth around his ribcage. His vision became foggy and he felt like he was drowning, but he couldn't move, and he was being dragged at and pulled down, and then all he could see were chains and metal. They were shiny and blinding, but they blocked what he could see as well and surrounded him with darkness while they burned and froze his skin. He could feel it wrapping tightly around himself and every instinct, every feeling in his body screamed that it had to end.

"No ghosts," he muttered into his arms, and breathed again, feeling the chains receding to the back of his mind where he felt a familiar pressure that he'd always assumed was due to stress or irritation.

There was silence all around him, and he looked up at Stripe. Having read the book five times in less than half as many weeks, he knew what was expected of him. The ghosts, the journeys, the eventual transformation. But he knew what he had to do, and he would tell Stripe just as much. Once the hamster had left he would go to bed, then start tomorrow. Hopefully he'd even forget the whole thing had happened. It wasn't like he was even that bad, so there wouldn't be much work to do. The occasional old lady taken across the road here, maybe help his mother cook a little there. "No ghosts," he mumbled.

There was a pause before Stripe began to move, spinning his wheel around in three complete rotations before stopping again. Craig could work out that that meant three ghosts, and nodded shakily. Something in Stripes rodent-y expression told him that there would be no bargaining.

He hated ghosts almost as much as he hated little children.

Stripe hopped out of the cage for the last time, and scampered across the desk towards the window. As he went, the curtains flew open, much to Craig's general annoyance, and the window swung open. Stripe cleared the gap between the desk and the windowsill with a calm jump, and clung to the curtains before dropping onto the sill. He turned and almost bobbed his head towards Craig, before casually darting out of the window.

Craig lifted himself out of his chair and slowly moved towards the open window with a feeling of dread and the slow movement mostly felt in a dream sequence.

He leaned out to pull the window shut, he tried desperately not to look out, but his eyes caught sight of the street's occupants, and his eyes widened at the huge crowd of people chained up like slaves. They were struggling to make the simplest of movements, and some were moaning or wailing, all creating a deafening sound that he couldn't block out. He'd been expecting this sight, but one thing was reading about it while hunting for language techniques to write about, another was seeing it. There was no satisfaction from knowing that the pain these people had caused themselves was grown from the same pain they had given others, especially when Craig saw an anciently old man struggle to simply stand up from the weight of the chain that seemed to have broken his back.

Thankfully there didn't seem to be any children within the crowd, but as soon as he spotted a group of teens younger than himself looking disgruntled in the snow he was able to tear himself away from the sight, a little sickened, his window being pulled shut by his weight pulling on the handle as he stumbled backwards towards his bed and fell under his covers, fully dressed, and blessed his luck as he began to slip away quickly into sleep.


	2. Stave 2

Craig awoke in complete darkness, unable to tell the time. He felt as if he'd slept for hours and hours, but it seemed as though only seconds had passed since earlier events, the details still crisp and clear-cut in his mind's eye, fading a little at the edges where his mind still insisted it was all just a bad dream.

He patted his hand onto his bedside table, hunting out his mobile phone to check the time, or to use as a torch for reading his watch. He was very aware of his arm stretching out into the open, empty darkness. His eyes had begun to adjust to the lack of light, and he could just make out his arm moving about. He shivered a little from the cold, and the feeling of betraying the darkness by daring to venture out from the protection of his duvet cocoon.

His hand was left tingling with disappointment as there was a lack of phone on the table, and he dreaded leaning over to look, until he realised that he'd gone to bed without changing into his pyjamas and so had left his phone in the front pocket of his jeans.

Pulling the phone out he picked the easiest route and checked the time on the screen. He rolled his eyes when the phone claimed it was seven in the morning. He must've taken the battery out at some point and not corrected the time. The date was still stuck on the 24th, though, instead of falling to its default of the first of January, 2000.

He went for plan b and checked his watch, but that gave much the same result. He frowned a little, trying to work out how little time had passed, when he realised that the first spirit wouldn't arrive until midnight, if at all. He had a good five hours to play around with. He laid his phone down on the table and contemplated the blackness surrounding him.

Maybe he could convince the ghosts he wasn't as bad as they all made him out to be. He considered going out and…. Well, spreading the joy, or something. Like feeding pigeons (only there wouldn't really be any out at this time) or finding a soup kitchen (but that would be really dangerous, he could easily get stabbed by some madman) or maybe he could even buy his family some presents (thinking about it, he really didn't have any money spare at the moment, he'd only just arranged it all into his saving accounts, and he had to keep the money in his bank accounts safe in case something went wrong. He'd write a note to put some money aside for next year though).

Craig brought his arms up and crossed them under his head. This whole nice thing was pretty tricky. It should've been easy, then everyone would be nice and there wouldn't be any problems in the world and he wouldn't have to worry about the fate of his soul.

All this self-debating was starting to make him sound like Tweek. What would Tweek do in this situation? Probably panic, scream a little and throw money out of the window. Craig winced a little at the idea of loosing money in such a silly way. Maybe he could call someone from school. Whose number did he still have? Who could he explain the situation to?

Kenny. Aside from being the only person Craig could handle talking to from practice of working together, he had that whole dying and coming back to life thing going on, meaning Craig could probably explain himself and be believed rather than having to invent a reason why he suddenly agreed with paying charities. And if Kenny didn't believe him he could always pay the other to keep qu-

Craig slapped a hand to his forehead in sync with the idea that hit him. Kenny was poor. Scrooge, in the book, hated poor people, and Craig was being forced to play the part of Scrooge. What better way to prove he wasn't anything like the character than to give money to the poor?

He nearly smiled as he reached over to grab at the bedside table for his mobile again, preparing a list of food that people could eat at Christmas that wouldn't cost him too much. It's not like Kenny's family would care, all that would matter to them was that they were being fed. He'd even make the call anonymous, so they wouldn't feel in debt towards him, though they really should. He'd tell Kenny of course, then he'd probably feel he should concentrate more on any work they shared. Maybe Craig'd offer to buy his lunch every day, if Kenny worked well, that was.

He narrowed his eyes, glaring triumphantly. He'd show those ghosts for drowning him in chains that weren't his problem; he was nothing like who they all assumed. He flipped his phone open and his eye caught on the time. Eight o'clock. He rubbed at his eyes. There was no way an hour had passed. He checked his watch, which read that it was now quarter past eight. His eyes flickered between the phone and the clock and grew wider and wider. Each time they landed on one of the objects he was holding he was told a few minutes had passed. He confirmed his madness now as he stared at his watch and witnessed the hour hand flying past the nine o'clock marker.

Ten. Ten-thirty.

Eleven.

Twelve.

He dropped his mobile and suddenly realised that the phone had returned to standby mode, meaning he was reading his wristwatch without the aid of his makeshift torch. His head flew up and he stared around his room, now bathed in a growing white light, and for a few precious seconds he took in the fact that his walls were actually a very pleasant shade of sky blue in this light, before discerning that the light was growing from his window.

He glowered at the window, which seemed to be causing him all sorts of problems today, and ignored the growing nerves loitering in his stomach as he tried to prepare himself for the next visitor. He still couldn't really understand why he had to go through with this, he'd never really hurt anyone in his life.

It seemed like there was a screen of pure white light being hidden behind the curtains, and he clutched his hands into two painfully tight fists as a pair of familiar, old hands split the curtains allowing a little blinding light to trickle out.

There was a pause for a quick breath, while Craig's heart stammered about in his chest, and then the curtains were pulled open and the figure stepped down through a window which wasn't really there any more.

"Really darling," she spoke, "you should stop staying so cooped up in here, you can't just waste a view like that."

Craig choked. "Grandma?"

She smiled. He wasn't certain that it was her, in the years since her death his memory of her had faded a little, and even now the light she was shrouded in made it difficult to focus. When he squinted at her it seemed as though she was an old lady, how he knew her, but he could see the shadow of a young woman- a child, even- hidden in her features, or maybe the colour of her hair and the way she now carried herself.

"Bu-but you're…. Dead? How are you here?"

She smiled a little more, fondly. "I can't be a ghost because I'm dead?"

He scratched at the back of his head and held his hands there, gripping his hat, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. He wouldn't cry.

She spotted his hat then. "oh, you're still wearing those ridiculous hats, I told your mother they were a bad idea, but did she listen? Look at you now, sleeping in your clothes. This is just like my warning against your father, but she wouldn't lis-"

He closed his eyes. He knew what he had to ask, and there was no way to avoid what would happen next. At least this could be extra work for his essay. "Grandma." He interrupted "I- Are you the ghost of Christmas past?"

His grandmother stopped speaking and began to smile at him again. He couldn't bear to look straight at her when she smiled like that, either the light grew brighter and was too strong to stare into, or the look of pride and love in her eyes was too unfamiliar to him and gave an unbearable stab of what felt like guilt to his stomach.

"I am. Your past."

Craig nodded, having expected the line. He knew the answer to the next question, but tried anyway. "Could you turn that light out? I can't see you."

She seemed to shake her head. "You should know better than to ask that, after you've spent so long keeping everyone around you in the dark."

Craig could remember this tone from his childhood from the times he'd stolen an extra cookie, or pushed Ruby over because her new toy was nicer than his, and suddenly he felt like a very small boy again. His grandmother had always maintained a steady tone when scolding, showing the wrongdoer they had done badly but could still make amends with a soft tone rather than the harsh words his parents had always used. He opened his mouth, but couldn't justify himself completely, and he wasn't ready for apologies just yet.

"Okay."

She returned her expression to the happy one she had been previously adopting and outstretched her hand to him and led him to the window. Complaints of the weather, time of night and falling filled his chest as he climbed onto the sill.

"Well then," she spoke and looked him straight in the eyes. He looked at her hand, feeling like a child and ever so slightly nostalgic more and more as the seconds passed. He took her hand and they jumped.

Craig opened his eyes and looked around. His room had vanished, and he was stood in the playground of South Park elementary school surrounded by snow but unable to feel the cold through his hoodie. His grandma explained that through they could see here, no other sense would be affected, allowing them to also go unseen. Craig wanted to ask why they could stay stood up on the ground, but chose not to in favour of taking in the scene around himself.

He hadn't been here in years. Maybe he should stop by in the future, just on the way home from school. He could take Ruby to school in the mornings? But it was different there now; they'd redone the outside, and put up a fence to stop strangers from getting in.

The sky was incredibly clear on this day, and judging by the coats being carried in the arms of parents passing by the sun was warm enough for the snow to be excused today. The school bell rang, and Craig could hear a cheer go up from inside the building, followed by a swarm of children flying out towards the parents. He was able to name Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Eric out from the crowd, rushing over to a younger, less wound up looking Sharon Marsh. Craig remembered this day. The boys were being taken out to Casablanca's (also confirmed by Eric's annoying cheers of joy). If he was remembering correctly, Token's parents were about to tell Token about his early Christmas present- a two week long holiday in Europe. Clyde was rushing home to play video games for the week leading up to Christmas, and he saw Wendy and Bebe leading a group of girls from their old class to a sleepover before he had to look away, remembering how his eleventh Christmas had been spent with his now drunken-asshole of a father.

"There's still a child in the school, isn't there?" his grandma spoke softly and he nodded slightly, pursing his lips. They watched the solitary figure all in blue exit the school building after everyone had left, and look around. The child's shoulders slumped a little in response to the empty courtyard, before he stood up totally straight and headed towards the road, where he sat down on the curb.

After a second of looking at his shoes the young boy began rummaging around in his school bag and pulled out three comic books. As Craig and the ghost travelled closer to the little figure in the snow Craig couldn't help himself and had to grin at the familiar covers of the books being held in the boys hands.

"Not totally alone then," his grandmother was smiling at the happy look on Craig's face, but he didn't see her.

"I had a copy of 'Scrotie Mcbooger Balls'? How the heck did I forget that?" he definitely remembered the Red Racer comics being flicked through at this moment.

The boy- who was wearing a matching hat to himself, Craig noted, he really had owned that hat for far too long- replaced the books into his bag and, after looking about himself as though to check no one was around, pulled a pad of paper out. He flicked it open and started to scribble as Craig slapped himself on the forehead.

"Dude. No way is that my Coon + Friends story board," he could remember hearing Eric yelling out in the classroom the details of his superhero organisation, and hating the four best friends for giving him such a huge inspiration for a totally ace superhero film.

He looked at his past self and thought about where that note pad, as well as all of the other storyboards he'd drawn out had gotten to. Little Craig started suddenly as the school door opened and both Craigs spun around in sync to see who was running out.

Tweek flew out of the door in a blur of green and yellow, clutching what seemed to be his school bag to his stomach. He ran along the path leading to the school building, but cut the corner at the last second and ran across the snow. Or he tried to, but he tipped over and slipped onto the floor, face first.

Craig saw his younger self jerk a little at Tweek's tumble, and he seemed to twitch as though he wanted to help. The pile that was Tweek was twitching to himself and clutching at his hair. Little Craig sighed and lifted himself off of the pavement in a display of laziness and strolled over to Tweek, who had given up on panicking and seemed to just be lying on the ground trying not to feel stupid. Little Craig stopped next to him for a second before pulling him onto his feet and helping to pick up all of Tweek's books.

Craig could barely make out their conversation from the road, but he thought his younger self was asking Tweek why he'd been running, to which he was given an answer telling him that his bag had broken, so he had to get home before the fabric of the universe was pulled apart.

"I don't remember this happening."

His grandma nodded. "You seem to have forgotten a lot since we last met."

Once Tweek's stuff was in order Craig turned to return to his seat on the pavement. Tweek followed shyly, explaining that his parents would still be working right now. Little Craig simply shrugged when Tweek asked if he could sit with him, though Craig could tell his younger self was happier now.

The two of them spoke for a little while, until Tweek spotted the notepad lying on Craig's bag, and demanded to know that Craig wasn't plotting the end of the world in collaboration with the government. Even his grandma seemed surprised when little Craig passed Tweek the notebook.

The boys sat in comfortable silence, occasionally swapping comments as Tweek flicked through the book. Craig could see now how much interest Tweek had in the book, looking at the details in every little sketched out box and giggling at any jokes, while his past self spent most of the time looking away, almost shy.

They chatted quietly for a few minutes until Craig's sister and mother arrived. His grandma began muttering about how Ruby's hand should be being held as they crossed the road, which Craig didn't feel was wholly justified as his mum was struggling to carry the two matching bags for her children, Craig's in blue, Ruby's in pink. Neither of them had been particularly original when it had come to favourite colours.

"Craig," his mother barked at him a little. Little Craig looked over to her.

"Oh," was all he said as he got up to take the bags.

"Don't just 'oh' me," she said, but without malice and handed the bags over. Little Craig was only eleven, but he was almost taller than her. Ruby hugged gave him a fleeting but warm hug and began spouting out about her day. Marie had called someone a bad word and was sent out. David's pen leaked in his bag and over his lunch so their class pooled together to buy him some food.

Meanwhile Craig's mum muttered at him under Ruby's gossip, "Where's your father? He was meant to meet you here and wait with you."

"I don't know, mom, he wasn't here when I got out."

Craig noticed how his mother tensed up and remembered the unending insults his parents used to throw around about each other.

"That scumbag! He said he'd be here, and is he? I think not. Who the hell just lea-" the noise cut out suddenly and Craig look around worriedly wondering if the vision was ending so quickly.

"You're ignoring them. Notice how you can still hear them a little? You haven't totally lost touch yet," his grandma explained softly. It was true, there was still a faint buzz of conversation where he could still get the gist of what Ruby and his mother were saying.

And then Tweek tapped him on the shoulder, and the noise came back. But this time it was quieter; Ruby and mom had stopped talking.

"I h-have to go now," Tweek was smiling at Craig's younger self, who nodded.

"Okay, see you after Christmas."

Tweek nodded and waved as he walked away, clutching his broken bag in his arms. Little Craig was smiling too.

The car pulled up. It was dark grey, and filthy, and Craig knew that it stank inside of beer and things Craig didn't want to think about. The window rolled down.

Their father nodded at them, and pointedly ignored their mother's presence. He jerked his thumb towards the back of the car, informing Ruby and Craig that they could get in the car.

Craig's mother hugged Ruby goodbye while little Craig put their bags in the boot of the car. Once Ruby was in the car Craig turned to his mother. The two of them looked at each other, both unsure whether they could get away with hugging the other. After a moment Craig sighed and turned away to climb into the car, and as his younger self muttered "see ya," Craig saw with an almost painful lurch to his heart that his mothers arm had been outstretched to him just as he turned.

The door shut and the engine started, and Craig's mother waved at the car until it disappeared around a corner. She wrapped her arms around herself and slowly began to trail her way home.

"You know," the spirit spoke, "she was considering asking your father to move back in with her, just so she could keep you and your sister with her."

Craig stomach felt a little empty and his eyes were curiously damp.

"Is something the matter?" his grandmother spoke gently and placed her arm on his shoulder.

"No, I just wi- no. It's a little cold is all." They both knew that they couldn't feel a thing here.

"Well then," the hand lifted from his shoulder and took his arm "let's go for a walk, that should take up the time we need for it to be Christmas Eve."

"You want us to walk for a week?"

"No, no, dear, just a few minutes should do," They walked along the road towards the corner the car had disappeared around. Craig felt that South Park was unusually quiet for early afternoon. Though it was starting to get a little darker the air was still crisper. The weather couldn't be to blame, today was reasonably warm for winter in the small village, and surely all of the children let out from school would be going insane from the freedom right now? Although the light was really starting to vanish now.

They turned the corner and walked into Denver. Craig spun around but it didn't change much. Behind him was the road across from where his dad now lived, in front was the apartment complex Craig and Ruby were meant to spend alternate Christmases at, though Craig hadn't been there in years. He still knew the number, the stairwell, the walk around the building from car park by heart, and walk it now, as though he was stuck in a dream-like state. Which, what with all of these spirits around, he supposed he was.

The sky was pitch black as they climbed the stairs to the third floor. That walk had always made him loose his breath a little, but he was fine now, it had no effect on his body. As they walked along the balcony to apartment 36 drunken laughter could be heard, and Craig felt his insides churn and clench up in defensive and familiar, practised hatred. Instead of knocking or opening the door, the two of them simply walked through it.

The scene before him was as he had expected. Around five or six large, drunken men were sprawled over the sofa or around the central dinner table. The TV was on, and two of them were discussing the program with slurred, overly nostalgic tones. Craig wanted to scream at them all, make them know how he and Ruby were feeling because of them, hidden a few rooms away trying to sleep and stay silent enough to not be disturbed.

"Why must I see this again?" Craig hissed with his hands clenched. His grandmother shushed him gently, knowing his distaste.

"This one will end shortly," she promised.

"But d'you, y'know, ever regret leaving?"

Craig couldn't stop himself from hissing "She threw him out, fool," venomously at the man next to his father. He wanted to call them things, and could feel their attention being called by the question.

"Listen now, Craig," his Grandma told him, though she seemed pleased by his comment.

His father spoke up then, and the room fell near silent, aside from some snoring and mutterings from the TV. His words broke Craig's glare a little. "Yes" he said, with what could only be guessed was a genuine sigh, "every day."

Craig chocked, and was finding it difficult to breath, or hear anything the others said. He thought he could discern a muffled cry of "Craig? Craig!" from his grandmother, and he clutched his head. There was no way- it wasn't possible that that stupid bastard of a father he'd been stuck with could even consider having feelings-

"BOY!" the bellow was painful and crude, and snapped Craig out of his shock.

"Asshole," he was back to hissing now. How dare his father imply he was the victim here, even to the filth that were more idiotic than himself? The spirit bit her lip with concern a little.

His past self appeared at the door, now aged fourteen, which surprised him a little at first until he remembered that the siblings were spending two Christmases with their father as last year had been spent with their mother as she'd won a holiday in a magazine. Ruby was still in the bedroom, and Craig could still remember his desperation at keeping her away from this. "Yes?" the tone was brusque, almost professional.

"Don't speak to me in that tone," his father tried to stand up for effect, but couldn't find the back of the chair. "and get us s'more beer."

There was a pause, before he flipped them all off, "Get it yourself, you fat fuck."

The room was totally silent for a few seconds before there was noise. They all began offloading yells and slurs at him about how he was out of line, he had no respect, and even one cry of "things weren't like this in my day." Craig's father told them how he'd been working at Craig's age. The room then came to a general consensus that the youth of today should all be given hard labour to teach them the hardships of life. Both Craigs rolled their eyes at the same time.

"Geez…." 14 year old Craig hissed as he left the room "I'll get your fucking beer," he changed a little as he turned, cloths lightening and hair mussing, and the beer he had been reaching for changed to a pint of milk. It was light now, and Christmas morning.

He placed the milk on the table and sat down. Ruby tossed the milk over her cereal while Craig waited his turn. Both avoided looking at their father, who was sat straight in his chair reading a newspaper, the only evidence of his drinking the previous night being his red eyes.

Just as young Craig brought a spoon of cereal to he mouth- he could tell from the matching grumpy looks in their eyes that both children were thinking mourningly of how their mother made them cooked breakfasts on Christmas morning- his father threw the newspaper down at him, narrowly avoiding the cereal.

"Take a look at those. You may not think anything of it, but you're lazy-as-fuck, and I'm tired of having you come here and expect to be waited on. If you're so desperate to act mature and go places on your own you can get a job." Young Craig's fists were clenched, and he jumped into the conversation with anger flashing in his eyes "What the he-!"

"No, I'm not having it. Either you find yourself a job, or I'll call your mother and tell her all about your disgraceful attitude with me. I'm sure she'll have no trouble with removing your playstation or TV" he left the room then, still yelling to himself, and Craig lifted the newspaper off of the table, hands shaking. He let it fall back down next to his cereals.

"Asshole." He hissed darkly, smashing his fist onto the table with a bang that made Ruby jump.

"Craig," modern day Craig turned to look at his grandma, and tried not to feel nauseous as the scene changed again.

He grinned a little once he recognised the front of the building.

His grandmother lead him into the warmly lit room, over to a counter at the back, following a man with a thick scarf and coat. As the man arrived at the counter, a taller, older version of Tweek Tweak walked out from the storage room where he and Craig had spent the quieter times of their shift playing an old game of scrabble they'd found hidden on a shelf one day. They apparently couldn't play Snakes 'n' Ladders as that game was a government conspiracy to find out who was strong enough to climb the ladders, or too weak and feel down the snakes.

Craig gulped as he watched his fifteen-year-old self heat up a cheese and ham toastie and Tweek make the coffee the man had ordered. He couldn't believe he could still remember working shifts at Tweak bros. Coffeehouse, but he couldn't remember how grateful he'd been to Tweek after the other had offered to ask his father if Craig could work with him after hearing Craig complaining and panicking at school over his fathers threats. He shook his head slightly.

The man paid and left, coffee in one hand and sandwich in the other, and Craig and Tweek began a conversation that had seemingly been cut short a few minutes before.

The older Craig looked around the familiar coffee shop, inspecting the Christmas decorations that he himself had put up. It didn't look too bad, he considered, a bit of tinsel and paper chains hanging from the ceiling, and a miniature Christmas tree sat on the counter. There had been no need for adding snow to the window, but he remembered that Clyde- who had helped decorate along with Token- had insisted on adding a packet of damn ugly Christmas themed stickers around the shop.

Craig looked closely at the nearest sticker, which happened to be a particularly creepy looking Santa Claus, and wondered why the hell he'd let Clyde go wild with those stickers. For some reason it'd made the other very happy at the time, though why that had seemed like a decent idea still didn't make sense. It must've been a good day.

His thought process was interrupted by the sound of someone laughing by the counter, and he ducked around the last people to leave the shop, a smiling couple chatting about they're plans for the next day, (and felt very silly when his elbow flew through the woman and he realised he didn't need to move out of the way for her at all) to get a better look at what was happening.

"Well, something different to hear," his grandma said with content, almost teasing him. His face coloured over a little as he realised that the person laughing was his past self.

Tweek stood looking shocked with an empty tray and several piles of shattered china at his feet, while Craig clutched at his gut, bent over with laughter. The blonde stood still for a few seconds, before, he, too, began to laugh.

Older Craig looked over to his grandmother, who was smiling, and felt like he was missing out on something, which he argued was a little silly as it was himself laughing with Tweek behind the counter. It seemed like a bit of a waste to him that they would now have to buy a new set of mugs, but clearly Tweek had done something very funny in the process of dropping the mugs that had seemed so funny to his past self.

Once the boys could breathe reasonably well again, they began clearing the shards of ceramic into a plastic bag. Craig warned Tweek to be careful of the sharp edges, and received a panicked noise in return. After they'd finished Craig leaned back on his heels while Tweek stood up to stuff the bag into the bin and kneel back down in front of Craig. They sat in silence for a few seconds, before they started laughing softly, again.

Craig's younger self leaned his head back against the cupboard he was sat next to, and smiled up at the ceiling. As his face fell, and coloured over slightly, older Craig's stomach dropped a little as he suddenly remembered what happened next.

"Wh- what? Oh god, the aliens have- ngh- landed, haven't they?" Tweek's hands shot to his hair as his eyes shot upwards. Both Craigs' faces coloured over at the sight of the mistletoe the two boys had unknowingly sat under. Older Craig's stomach dropped as he remembered this happening.

The four of them waited in the coffeehouse in awkward silence, nobody knowing quite what to do. Craig panicked and wondered if anything would happen if he threw himself into the two boys or attempted to pull down the offensive decoration. The other Craig squirmed and shifted uncomfortably into a kneeling position, while Tweek sat frozen staring upwards almost in fear. Craig remembered not being offended by that because it was Tweek, and Tweek was scared of everything. He also remembered an annoying and bizarre fondness of that fact.

"C-Craig," Tweek spoke quietly, still looking upwards. Craig noted that the two of them had unconsciously shifted closer. He turned to his grandmother and explained how he felt they'd learnt enough from this scene and could now move on. She just shushed him brusquely and insisted that things were "just getting interesting".

"Yeah?" Craig hadn't realised that he'd been looking at Tweek like that and despised himself for it. What the hell had he been thinking? Even Tweek seemed a little taken aback when he looked down and saw the almost kind look on Craig's face. The entire scenario was like a sickeningly sweet nightmare. It was incredibly bizarre watching himself play out these acts, and was a little shocked at how long it took for him to realise that it was like the detachment of watching himself on one of his old home movies. It had been a while since he'd watched one of those.

He reasoned that he had slightly bigger problems right now, however much he may of missed his old films, and was so totally engrossed by what was happening that he forgot what happened next.

"Gn-gnomes," Tweek muttered in a frightful tone, pointing upwards. He could remember the embarrassing thought that Tweek had panicked at their proximity and made the first excuse he could to get out of it (a thought that had left him somewhat sleepless and grumpy for weeks, but he wasn't just ready to remember that just yet). Younger Craig hung his head in his own way of avoiding the situation, but from where he was stood now, he could in fact see a gnome crawling away to safety. He felt the same funny drop to his stomach as when he'd seen his mother stretching her hand out to him.

The two boys looked at each other for a second, and Craig remembered, and almost felt, the nervous stab to his chest that he'd felt two years ago, when Tweek's father walked in, and older Craig couldn't quite decide whether it was about time or not.

The two fifteen year olds jumped up from behind the counter so quickly that they hit their heads together painfully, while Richard Tweak told them to close up the shop early, due to it being Christmas Eve. Craig thanked him silently for intervening while his past self thanked him out loud for the time off, but he couldn't help but notice the empty look in Tweek's eyes and his stomach ache worsened.

"Now can we go?" He muttered quietly to his Grandmother.

"One last bit," she spoke gently.

The two boys were clearing away quite cheerfully due to their shortened shift. They finished with around half an hour free before Craig's dad would pick him up. Ruby would be picked up from their home with the bags. Craig couldn't remember the conversation the boys were now having and figured it was reasonably too mundane to be remembered. Craig's grandmother seemed to check her watch, though he couldn't remember her ever wearing one, and then placed her hand on his lower shoulder, guiding him to the door.

"This should take up some time, if we just…." She pulled open the door and Craig was amused to compare the steady, gentle snowfall that could be seen through the windows to the harsh blizzard of ice shards that was whipping past the doorway.

He almost wanted to call goodbye to Tweek, but instead narrowed his eyes and clenched his fists at such a silly notion as he passed through the doorway he shielded his eyes from the wind and snow and tensed his body against the cold, but was pleased to find that the snow didn't touch him and his body temperature stayed constant.

The same, however, could not be said for the younger version of Craig stood in the storm- now older by about an hour- who's dark blue jacket was so snow loaded it seemed to take on a pale shade of pastel blue. He was shivering and tapped repeatedly at his phone, which had a touch screen and was having trouble registering Craig's orders when his hands were so cold.

It seemed that he was making a call as when he was finally successful he moved the phone up to his ear, tucked under his hat. After a few moments he cursed, looked at the phone and poked the screen a couple of times before his call was picked up and the groggy, half asleep voice of his father could be heard.

"Who's it?"

"Craig. You know. Your son."

"The hell d'you want?"

Craig watched as his younger self's eyes narrowed into a glare and his shoulders squared despite the cold making them hunch as anger took over his body.

"You fucking forgot, didn't you?"

There was a pause, before a gruff "forgot what?" and Craig slammed his fist into the phone, effectively hanging up (and breaking the phone, which had later annoyed him, again. Those things weren't too cheap.).

Older Craig shook his head. "How can you forget your own kids?" his nails were cutting half moons into his palms. His grandmother didn't reply, but he was comforted by the knowledge that she disliked his father almost as much as Craig hated him.

The bell of the coffee shop jingled cheerfully through the tense night air, and Tweek walked out shivering with his dad. He stopped when he saw Craig still standing outside and mumbled something to his dad. He walked over to Craig and stood next to him, shaking.

"Ar-are you still-ngh- going?" Craig shook his head and Tweek nodded, not wanting to pry. "Do you- ack!- wanna sleep at mine? We-we've got popcorn, and loads of food, we co-could watch a film or-" he stopped when Craig turned to look at him, looking nervous and worried that something was wrong. Craig turned away again, a move that he could now see was to hide how grateful he felt.

"Yeah, that sound's cool."

"I can't-" Craig was fully willing to admit how shocked and almost ashamed he was that he'd forgotten how kind Tweek had always been.

"How can you forget your own friends?" his grandma spoke softly, pulling him gently away from the brown car Tweek's dad would be driving them in and around the corner.

His and Tweek's 16-year-old selves walked out of the only cinema in South Park and onto the street. Craig and the spirit followed just behind. The two in front of them were totally silent. Tweek was staring at his feet, twisting and untwisting his hands in and out of fists, as if he was weary or scared.

"So, uh…. What did you, ngh, think of the film?"

Craig shrugged. "It kinda sucked. Wasn't worth the money," Tweek almost seemed to deflate and figured that conversation had ended.

"How awkward," the Ghost spoke and Craig frowned.

"Not really, he easily could've asked me why," Craig argued. It wasn't his fault, he'd been studying film making in his spare time and now couldn't watch a film without counting out every scene change or making digs at the soundtrack.

The walk continued in quiet for another five minutes before Tweek tried again. "D'you wanna, um, go anywhere?"

Without missing a beat younger Craig shrugged and muttered whatever.

"We could- ngh- go to the arc-cade? Or walk down the hi-high street?" Craig shook his head.

"Cost too much these days."

"W-well, we don't have spend money, we could just go to Stark's Pond? Or m-my house, if…. If you want to…." He faded out as Craig gave him a look.

"I don't care."

There was something harsh about his tone; he had to admit now he could hear it. He noticed his grandmother watching him and frowned at her.

"What? I was letting him choose," She turned away with her eyebrows raised, looking very much like him.

The boys were silent again, falling into step with each other. At the time he'd thought it was fine, tweek just understood that he wasn't so big on the talking thing. Clyde and Token hadn't seemed to get that, and had recently been distancing themselves from him he'd scoffed at that, knowing he was better without them.

Looking at himself and Tweek now though, it was just…. tense. Tweek was obviously under enough stain from not yelling out that there was far too much pressure going on, let alone what the actual situation was doing to him. He still seemed willing to make another attempt at conversation though.

"Wh-what d'you want for Christma-mas?"

Younger Craig sighed. "I dunno, Tweek, you know I don't believe in that bullshit anymore."

Tweek smiled, and Craig now noticed how his face coloured over slightly when he's spoken his name. It was almost unnoticeable under the red already over his cheeks from the wind. "Yeah, but I can still buy you presents."

"It's not like I'm gonna get you anything," Craig's tone could only be described as grumpy. Tweek stopped walking in the middle of the street. His back tensed as he curled up and gripped his hair with both hands, trembling a little more than he usually would.

"What."

Craig spoke blankly and kept very still with his hands in his pockets, eyes lidded with the lack of empathy they held. Tweek looked up at him and seemed to snap. "Argh! What the hell, Craig? This is way too much pressure, you're so different now, did the government turn you into some weirdo, creepy grinch as some weirdo experiment or something? Or was it aliens?" Tweek jerked foreward in a single disjointed movement to dig his nails into Craig's shoulders "Oh my god, I bet it was aliens! It's aliens, isn't i-"

Craig smacked Tweek's arm away with a sudden, harsh crack.

Tweek blinked in shock and slowly gripped at his shaking arm. That had sounded fairly painful. Craig remembered that at the time he was certain that Tweek was about to start bawling at him. He still was, even though he could remember what happened next. He could even mutter Tweek's next words along with him, though he'd not thought about this day in a very long time. He didn't care or anything, but…. He couldn't help but be somewhat over taken by the longing for his younger self to just spontaneously hug Tweek, or to just do something that would prove himself as something, anything, but the heartless bastard that he was being here.

"Craig," they muttered together, both staring straight at the floor avoiding their companions eyes. "I don't think we can be friends anymore."

There was a second's pause, allowing the older Craig to watch Tweek's reaction to what he would say next.

"Kay." Tweek did not disappoint. His eyes snapped up to Craig's now retreating back. The expression on his face was terrible, the hurt and pain clearly visible, and Craig felt like he'd kicked a small puppy, though he hadn't really done anything himself right now.

Tweek wrapped his arms round his skinny frame, slowly and not seeming to realise what he was doing, turning away and trailing in the direction of his home. He looked really cold and small, and Craig tried to follow him, but his grandmother caught hold of his arm, stopping him effectively.

He chocked on the strain of not yelling at her, and managed to control his voice to a semi-level beg for freedom. She shook her head.

"My time is short, and you've had the chance to follow him once before," he could feel his cheeks and mouth tense up into a glare completed by it's frown. "If you want to help him then learn your lessons."

He turned to argue with her, but instead turned into Clyde's kitchen.

His stabbing anger towards her faded as he really looked at her and saw just how fragile she looked right now. The youth she'd regained when they had first been reunited had faded since, leaving her looking gaunt ad sunken, like she had the year leading up to her death, and it hit Craig fully in the chest that soon he would loose her again.

He wanted to say something meaningful, but she tugged him through the living room by the arm, slowly and carefully like a pensioner would. There was a crowd of Craig's old friends sat here, in this room that was so very familiar no matter how long it'd been since he was last here. Nostalgia filled him as he looked about, making his stomach clench painfully with regret. That aching took over his entire body once he saw Tweek again, though it had been a matter of minutes since he'd technically last seen him.

Tweek was sat on Clyde's sofa, with Damien and Pip on his left, Kyle to the right. They were all, aside from Damien, talking desperately and quickly. As Craig moved towards them, supporting his grandmother with one arm, he could tell they were working to try and convince Damien that they cared that it was his birthday too. Apparently the anti-Christ was a little annoyed and jealous of the attention he was missing out that was caused by the fuss from the village every year for their very own Jesus.

Craig laughed scornfully was his eye caught Timmy and Jimmy were watching Kevin play a Star Wars themed game Stan.

"The hell are Stan and Kyle doing here? Fatass better not be camping out in the fridge or something stupid."

"It was really only you who didn't like that group of boys. Well," the Spirit answered him "Things occasionally get a little…. Tense between Stan and Token if Wendy's around. And of course nobody really likes 'fatass', as you put it."

Clyde walked in at that point, carrying his body weight in plates of food- which was an accomplishment when you thought about it- followed by Kenny complete with drinks.

"Oh my God, guys, my mum made Christmas themed tacos!" he set the food down on the table, allowing Craig to frown over how disappointingly not Christmassy the tacos looked aside from their already taco-like colours.

It was just as well the food had been put down when it was, as at that moment Clyde's front door opened and a snow-covered Token walked in to the house. Clyde whooped and bombed into his friend like the idiot he was, latching onto him and looking very much like he was about to burst into tears.

"Oh Jesus, man, your flight got in on time, you're here, you're totally here and not in guacamole!"

"Guatemala…." Token muttered like a frustrated parent as the others began to crowd around him and he reached into a bag he'd been carrying that was now on the floor and started to hand out gifts.

Tweek shrieked from the living room where he had stayed, kneeling on the sofa with his hands gripping into his hair and wide eyes. "Token was flying in this weather, and you didn't tell me?"

Clyde shrugged from where he was still clinging to Token, close to the floor he was at risk of being dropped to. "You were mopping, we figured you didn't need anything more to worry about." Well that was wrong. If anything Tweek was the type who needed distracting. "So anyways, how was the flight?" Tweek yelped at the word flight from the living room and shut his eyes. The group began to return to the living room, Clyde detaching from Token to steal his tacos, all content with their respective presents.

"It was awesome, I'm pretty sure we almost crashed around three times," (Tweek meeped again) "but…. What's up with Tweek?" While Stan had been out of the room, Kevin had taken the opportunity to finish kicking the crap out of his virtual character, and Craig watched Tweek focus on that to avoid the conversation.

"Craig broke up with him," Clyde flung himself dramatically onto the couch as he spoke, completing the movement by smacking the back of his hand into his forehead gracelessly in mock faint impression. Craig was glad to see the food on his plate almost tipped over as he did that.

The only reactions Tweek gave to the conversation were slightly wider eyes and a lack of trembling. He'd also muttered that he and Craig hadn't been dating around the same time Craig had, though one of them couldn't be heard.

"Is that why he was sat at home alone watching Red racer?" Token attempted to change the topic a little and Tweek actually turned to him at that, brightening a little.

"Ws he watching episode 137?" Clyde raised his eyebrows expressively at Tweek, who turned away shyly.

"What?"

"W-was the main character blue?"

"Um…. Yeah, I think so. How the heck did you know that?"

Tweek's cheeks coloured over a little. "Um, well he actually has a pa-patern to how he wat-ngh- watches them. Sometimes if I couldn't sleep he'd come over and we'd watch it together, but I had to watch the same episodes over and over again if he fell asleep. It's kind of- gah!- weird, but I learnt it in the end."

"Damn, When you said he used to help you I thought he might've been a nice guy for a second. That was until you mentioned that he was an anal fuck over it-"

Token scolded Clyde's language and Craig didn't listen to the group begin to insult him. Tweek also avoided the topic he was pleased to see, along with Pip and Damien, though he suspected that Damien really didn't care. He was fairly certain that Kenny could see them, which was a little odd now that he had grown used to people not seeing them.

"I want to go now," he said, and his Grandma watched his unchanging expression for a second as though to check how serious he was. Then she nodded once, firmly, and the light fell away from them. She gripped his hands firmly, once, before she began to slip away from him. As she left him he scrambled and clawed at the air in front of him, trying to pull her back to him. But it was far too late, and she'd gone.

Voices and sounds from what he'd seen and heard filled his ears and his mind as she'd faded away, only they were terrible and accusing and his pulled his hands over his ears like a child and screwed his eyes shut. Nothing helped to block the sound out.

It was like he was Ruby, being hidden away from their screaming parents, only there was no older sibling to protect him. He was falling down into deeper darkness and the choking dread that filled him told him he was falling onto someone's grave.

He shot up from his bed and gasped loudly, before folding over and curling into a safer cocoon of pillow and sheets.


	3. Stave 3

It was light once Craig awoke again. Or at least, his room was filled with a warm light that hadn't been there before. It didn't come from the curtains or the single bulb that hung from his ceiling. He sat up from the tangle of sheets he was lying in and leant forward to rest his head in his hands, with his elbows resting on his knees. He rubbed at his temples and eyes, trying to remember as many of the little details from his hectic night as he could.

He'd never needed- or bothered- to consider the opinions of the other people in his life, especially not to this degree. It had just never been an issue.

As he started to consider what could happen next, his phone alarm began to chime- though he definitely had not had time to set it- and he glanced at it, only to see that once more it was midnight.

He let the alarm ring, waiting for the ghost to arrive, still wondering who it might be. Once the tune ran out he waited a second before he looked around in vague confusion.

It took him a few more seconds of slightly worried waiting, considering that he might've been dreaming and wondering what he would do if nothing happened next before he detangled himself from the sheets and left the room to attempt to hunt out the next spirit.

It didn't take too long. The room he walked into from his bedroom was filled with the same amiable light that had spilt into his room, and he was glad to only be wearing the short black t-shirt from the day before (or whenever the heck it had been) as it was now too warm for a hoodie or jumper.

He was surrounded by table and chairs all covered completely with holly and poinsettia and various other Christmas plants and decorations. But more than that, there was food.

Everywhere he looked, there were plates and dishes, full and over spilling with a mixture of bright colours and neutral tones. He could smell it all too as we walked by with his mouth hung slightly agape, rich and sweet all at the same time. He wasn't hungry, but he could feel his mouth drool slightly s he gazed at the delicacies around him.

Standing towards the back of the room was a familiar figure dressed up in a green hooded jacket, lined with the cleanest white fur Craig had ever seen wrapped around his neck and wrists. The figure waved enthusiastically and spoke with an almost trademark cheesy grin.

"'You have never seen the likes of me before,'" he sounded so genuinely thrilled with that quote that Craig was close to being nice to him.

"Dude," Craig replied with his nasally tone, "Kenny. What the fuck."

Kenny just kept his grin going a little more. "Have you seen all the food? It's insane! I didn't even know you could eat half of these things, let alone dress them up for Christmas!" he pulled a few grapes out from a silver fruit bowl and threw one in the air, catching it expertly in his mouth. Craig felt a slight lurch of pity as he remembered Kenny entertaining people with that party trick so he could eat lunch as a child. "Apple? Roast potato? Strange duck thing that I'm not sure should be on a table?" Kenny offered with his mouth full.

Apparently the food was all his until morning. Craig interrupted his plot to get his family here for feeding; ignoring the urge to tell the other that it was a pheasant he was now poking at.

"How are you the spirit of Christmas present? I- have you even read this book?"

"Yeah, course I have, Kyle made us. Don't look at me like that, I enjoyed it. I signed up for this shit."

Craig rolled his eyes around. "This 'shit' being the whole saving my evil, condemned soul stuff then."

Kenny ignored the comment, perhaps paying enough attention to add a few more teeth to his grin. "'sides, I'm the closest thing to Christmas spirit this town has. Well." He reconsidered "They did want Santa to do it, but I argued that I was better coz I know you. And I'm poor, so that's an added bonus as you do love us poor so."

Craig hated the idea of his possible future being discussed with a group of festive icons, and Kenny. "Right, I see."

"Anyhow," He clapped his hands together "Let's get this thing going before I get fatter than Cartman."

Craig asked when he could go home, to which Kenny replied "when you find Cartman-fat jokes funny.". He offered Craig a little more food, who shook his head at the offer again, and was amused to see that Kenny had to pull his sleeve right up for his next move as the jacket was far to large for him. He presented Craig with his fist, which was impressively still quite tanned, index finger pointed out.

"What." Craig glare at Kenny, who maintained a somber expression.

"You have to pull my finger."

"No."

"Look, we can't go till you do, just pull my finger. What' the deal?"

"Kenny," Craig was impressed by how level his tone was "I have just flown through my past, learnt that I am a total jackass, seen my grandmother die again, and have been attacked by a hamster with the magical ability to screw up kitchen appliances. I am not," he paused here for extra emphasis "gonna pull your fucking finger."

"You're no fun. Fine, grab my hood."

Craig's eyes narrowed as he reached gingerly for the smallest clump of the soft fur he could find, saying "I swear, if we shoot off with rainbows flying out of our asses, I will ki-" when the scene change jerked him off of his feet and the words were torn from his lips.

They landed in a fresh snow, which Craig was unimpressed to find out could now affect him. He'd been thrown violently onto his front, ad lifted himself up onto his hands and knees, spitting out melting snow and shivering in now wet clothes. Kenny, a few feet away, had fared better by managing to land on his feet and took the opportunity to burst into laughter. He shrugged defensively when Craig glowered at him. "What? You let go."

"Of course I let go, I was freaking tipped upside down. Learn how to goddamn turn," he threw a badly held together clump of snow at Kenny, which went wide by far, and the effort of the swing caused him to land on his face again. Kenny chocked on his laughter.  
"It's not my fault, I've not done this before," he pulled Craig onto his feet "Here," he swung his arms about like some kind of magician, and Craig would've told him how stupid he looked if it wasn't for the gust of hot air that hit into him, almost knocking him over again. He looked down at the now dry clothes he was wearing. "And anyway, we've got a bit to walk now."

"Could I at least have some shoes?" Craig pointed at his socks, as his shoes had been the only clothes he hadn't slept in. Kenny blinked.

"Um, hold on a sec," he thought to himself for few moments before clicking his fingers. A new pair of denim all stars appeared on Craig's feet. Kenny saw Craig's frown and rolled his eyes.

"Don't worry, they're free. Courtesy of Christmas spirit and the fact that you haven't bought shoes in three years," Craig was fairly affronted and opened his mouth to splutter out an argument but closed it again when Kenny shot him a look that told him the last time he'd bought a new pair of shoes.

They'd started walking once Craig had his shoes and had reached the high street soon enough. They were walking though crowds of people, but Craig found he didn't mind these crowds so much with the knowledge that he was totally invisible to these people.

He actually found himself admitting that the groups of children and teens stood carol singing on the corner added a nice atmosphere to the darkening light that was slowly being taken over from by the lights of Christmas decorations hung in and around shop windows.

Kenny let Craig stop at several shop windows to have a closer look at how they'd dressed them up for the season. He'd never really noticed or paid attention to these things before, but he found he was now totally fascinated, along with a group of small children who were crowded around by a toy shop window filled with tens of small mechanical winter scenes. There tiny children skating around a small frozen lake, small houses showed families hanging stockings and putting up trees, and people wandered between shops and other buildings, seemingly singing along to the ambient music. A train circled the little automated village, looking not unlike a cross between South Park and the Christmas village in 'A nightmare before Christmas' with it's white cotton wool and fake snow. Father Christmas beamed down from his red sleigh with his reindeer, sat at the top of the display. It must have been the lights and the cheerful noises surrounding him and pulling Craig into something he'd once believed to be festive cheer. He found the display, which usually would be faulted for being jerky in movement and low detailed in expression, charmingly fascinating. He moved away from the shiny colours and lights then, only to have his attention caught by the next shop and the following display, and the tree at the end of the road. He didn't know where to look, he was totally hooked on how stunning the colours were and the way the light contrasted against the dark being lit up by yellows, blues, greens and red.

He settled for trying to look at everything before his full attention was caught by a particular shop, where the centre of the window showed him a bright red phone. It seemed familiar to him, and thinking about it made him remember how Ruby had been dropping hints and leaving ads open about this phone for months. He'd picked up with slight irritation that this was the current object of her desires.

The thing only cost a little over a hundred but Craig knew that their mother had bought all of their presents and the phone was worth a little bit more than she could afford.

It wasn't like he had any money he could spare, but he noted the name and location of the shop in the back of his mind.

Kenny called him over soon enough, and, with one last reproachful if not regretful look over his shoulder, he turned and joined the blonde who lead him away from the activity and noise of the main street.

The roads they arrived to were still lit with that glowing warmth given out by Christmas decorations and were just as busy, though the activity was a little hidden behind closed. The ornaments were also less cheesy and somewhat more personal. As they walked along this road, Craig looked into the windows of homes and could see the details of each person's life. He could see children allowed to stay up late, playing video games and watching films, family dinners and board games, and lots of fire places. Most people in South park owned a fireplace, but they rarely used them until December, when suddenly everyone felt the desire to burn wood for warmth. In every window all Craig could see was joy and happiness, and he found a defensive, ugly feeling of jealousy crawl up into his chest and sit there. He thought f all the Christmases hed spent either alone or surrounded by too much effort and false love because his parents didn't care to stay together.

Kenny was shooting Craig, hunched over with his arms crossed around himself, a look from the corner of his eye. When Craig turned his head to glower at the blonde, Kenny pointed to a window showing a boy sat at a table licking cake mix from a spoon while his mother fiddled with the switches on an oven holding an unbaked cake.

Craig was hit with the memory of bickering playfully with Ruby over a bowl of cookie dough while mother watched fondly from the sink. He had the knowledge of his dad building a fire out of wood that they'd chopped earlier together. Well, his dad had been chopping. He'd ran around with blocks of wood feeling helpful and like a lumberjack.

He gulped as the memory faded, thinking resentfully about how the drinking, fighting and divorcing had gotten in the way of scenes like that.

They were walking quite slowly now.

"You know…. My dad drinks, too," Kenny said with quiet and realistic empathy. Craig felt a twisted comfort to that comment and nodded. "It's kinda weird how hard it can hit you, even though you're not doing anything wrong," the comment was thoughtful in tone and Craig agreed, though he hadn't though about it in that way before. "But…. You're dad's paying for it too."

"You want me to pity him."

Kenny sighed. "Okay, check this. It's badass." He clapped his hands together firmly once, and, following the cracks and snapping sounds made, the two houses nearest to the boys swung around and opened up the sides of their walls so one face was open for the world to see, like giant dolls houses showing two sets f very familiar rooms.

In one house he could see his father's apartment with the rooms rearranged to fit into the shape of the house. His mother's home had taken over the other house next to it. The scenes shown were mirroring each other, and he could see his mother- unknowingly with her back to her ex husband- watching TV on their sofa and relaxing with a glass of wine in hand. He father had his back to hers, too, and was slumped over the table, beer bottle in both hands. There were open photo albums by the two of them. The walls of each building separated them, and they looked incredibly lonely, if not vulnerable.

Ruby walked into the living room, and moved to sit next to her mother. She pulled the photo album from the lap of the other and Craig could see and just about hear the muffled tones from the TV and the two of them as they discussed the album.

As they laughed together Craig could see that the two of them looked genuinely happy. It was almost unfamiliar.

Kenny clicked his fingers and the scene rolled by on some kind of fast-forward, his father gradually slumping closer to the table in the next room before eventually falling asleep. The speed slowed down back to normal as the two girls stepped off of the sofa and turned the TV off, leaving the room with their arms around each other.

As the door of the living room shut, the door to his father's apartment opened, allowing Ruby access into the room. Craig frowned; once he'd refused to visit his father on alternate Christmases, Ruby had soon followed suit.

"She tends to spend lunch with him. Did you not notice your mum leaving to drive her there the last few years?" Kenny explained and asked earnestly. A little too earnestly.

Craig didn't reply.

As Ruby entered the room, their father lifted himself up from the table and enveloped her into an emotional hug. He didn't sway drunkenly, but Craig spotted tears in his eyes. He felt a protective surge towards his sister, and thought of all the effort he'd made to keep her safe from him. He turned back to Kenny.

"So what? It's his own damn fault if he's lonely or whatever. What d'you want me to do about it?"

Kenny rolled his eyes "Yeah, he's doing it, doesn't mean he's not helpless. He's begging her right now," Kenny pointed up to the house where Ruby was almost supporting her dad.

"Well I'm sure she can work magic just fine on him. They clearly don't need me."

"You don't get it, do you?" Kenny clocked his fingers and began to walk away. Craig stumbled after him, trying to keep up with his hands in his pockets. Kenny called out over his shoulder. "Y'know, my dad shot me six times in the chest before he got some help. Put some fucking effort in."

Craig stopped walking.

He hadn't ever thought that Kenny had real problems, other than being the poor kid, but that was…. Awful, even if it wouldn't ever kill him. He was saved from coming up with an apology that wouldn't sound forced or awkward by Kenny announcing the next stop on their journey. "Hurry up, we're here," his voice was cheerful again "Or at least, I am."

Craig sped his pace up moodily "Hang on, this is Stan's place, isn't it?" Kenny nodded "Why are we at Stan's?"

Kenny shrugged. "Let's find out," and lead through the door.

The first thing that Craig noticed was the amount of people Stan had managed to fit into his living room. The second was the lack of Clyde and Token in the area this time around, and he almost felt proud of them until he remembered the party Clyde had mentioned to him when he was trying to get home. The third thing he noticed was Tweek smiling bashfully into his cup of coffee.

At the back of his mind he was fairly impressed that the group had somehow convinced the paranoid blonde to leave his room, but most of his thoughts were currently preoccupied with trying to keep his pulse level. It was quite strange to see Tweek now (though the weirdest thing was easily seeing Kenny high five himself when no one was looking) and he almost didn't want to follow Kenny over to Tweek's corner. They ducked around Kyle arguing with the black haired boy who had been part of the carol singers Craig had walked into on the way home from school. He could now recognise him as Kyle's adopted brother, Ike.

The rest of the group were playing a Terrance and Phillip themed version of pin the tail on the donkey, but Craig didn't pay attention to that, and neither did Tweek.

Ip joined Tweek at around the same time that they did, and sat down with a wide smile "Hello Tweek!"

Tweek smiled back, but the look in his eyes showed his alarm at the size of Pip's beam, and Craig amused himself by trying to think of all of the possible conspiracies Tweek could be uprooting in his head at that moment while they discussed Christmas and the holidays.

Craig was surprised to hear that Tweek was now a vegetarian and wouldn't be eating any poultry, which also shocked Pip a little. The British blonde began recounting the traditions of eating turkey from his childhood, and Tweek, seemingly interested in the topic, asked what England was like.

"Are you okay, Tweek?" Pip asked a little way into their conversation. "You seem a tad distracted."

Tweek bit his lip and nodded shyly after a brief pause "Mmm. I- I just feel li-like…. Someone's missing…."

"Craig," Tweek jerked slightly, chocking on the coffee he was sipping at.

"Wha- no! I- How- how can you t-tell….?"

Pip smiled gently "You seem rather lonely since he stopped talking to you," Craig decided to be a nice person and not yell out that it wasn't his fault.

Tweek nodded shakily. Craig, who'd sat on the armrest of the sofa, realised he was leaning into the conversation and sat back, embarrassed.

Kenny raised his eyebrows in Craig's general direction, but was distracted by Kyle trying to convince Ike that the younger boy was tired and wanted to go to sleep now.

"I miss him…."

Both Craig and Pip nearly missed Tweek's mutter, but Craig did hear it, and blushed, feeling almost relieved.

Pip coughed to himself, but nodded for Tweek to continue.

"It's just…. It's just everybody tells me to shut up about him, and they just call him an asshole. But he-he isn't an asshole! I mean- he's totally an asshole, but he's n-nice to me. Or…. He used to be…."

Pip nodded "Oh, I know what you mean, he's horrible, but you know that that's just how he responds to people?"

Tweek nodded now, gripping the coffee mug tightly as he got stuck into the conversation. "Yeah, like h-how Craig was always fighting- gah - people, but it was always t-to stick up for someone. Or how he hates Christmas b-but he always buy us pr-" Tweek stopped talking then, obviously struck by bad memories. Craig felt a strange hunger to make some kind of contact with him. But that wouldn't happen, he was pretty sure he was invisible right now.

"You two remind me of Damien and I a few years ago," Pip smiled at Tweek as he looked up with a pitiful look in his eyes.

"Things worked out okay for you guys, right?"

Pip looked over to Damien, looking moody in a corner, while Stan and Kenny's past- or maybe it was the future version now?- self were attempting to explain why a tree was decorated and stood looking pretty next to them. Pip nodded and laughed as he mentioned how Damien would cheer up a little once they began setting Christmas puddings, log fires, and various other things, n fire.

"How?" It was another mutter that almost went unheard.

Pip looked thoughtful for a second, before he began to explain that it just had, when he was hit with a coughing fit. He struggled to catch a breath and Tweek anxiously patted his back. A black could appeared in the corners of their eyes, and then Damien was next to them, seemingly without having moved from the other side of the room.

Kenny Pulled Craig up onto his feet "Come on."

"But what about-?" he looked back at the group now crowding around Tweek. Kenny looked at him sadly and shook his head.

Craig looked back again just as they left. Pip's coughing seemed to have died down, and Damien sat around him protectively while Tweek fussed over him, insisting that he couldn't cough to hard in case his intestines fell out. Crag smiled fondly towards Tweek. He really didn't want to go away again.

There was a cry of "It's Mr Hanky!" as they walked outside, and Kenny laughed, saying he was glad he'd be able to be there this year.

They walked along the streets in silence, passing by the cemetery near Craig's own home. He wondered if they'd be visiting his house at all, but supposed that he knew what would happen there anyway. He really wanted to see Tweek again, already, but seeing the cemetery gates gave him an idea

"You know, I don't think I'm too bad. At least I'm not like those Goth kids, they hate Christmas more than I do."

Kenny blew his fringe out of his eyes. "Well, for starters it's not just Christmas. You're a jerk all year. Don't look at me like that, you know I'm telling you the truth. Secondly, you've read the book, you should know that this whole thing's about going out for your fellow man and all that. Those 'Goth kids' are all for sticking out the pains of conformity together. And they're actually kinda cool. Once you get past the stabbing you for the sake of their non-conformist God and everything."

"…. You have a terrible life."

"Geez, it's about time someone other than Kyle picked up on that. We're here, by the way." He caught Craig by the elbow to stop him from walking further along the street.

"Red's?" He frowned. The two of them had been friendly as children, somewhat, but hadn't spoken much since then. He couldn't think what her opinion on his life could offer him.

"Yep, apparently she's Clyde's latest idol," Kenny stepped into the house "He was very pleased with his invitation, I believe he even invited you too."

Craig was surprised to see Cartman here with Butters looking anxious beside him. Craig predicted that Butters would arrive home to a session of being grounded later that night. Cartman, looking half decent in his shirt and jeans, had the look of someone on an important mission. With Cartman that meant anything from an earnest apology to an awkward mixture of the school, fire and woodland creatures.

"Looks like he's finally gonna man up and say somethin' to Wendy."

"What."

"Oh? Did you not know? After all of your bitching at the two of them I figured you'd at least worked out their hidden feelings of love and other cheesy things for each other."

"Well, yeah, but…. I didn't realise it was true or anything," Craig felt a bit guilty now, and pity was a horrible thing to feel for Eric Cartman and Wendy Testaburger. He thought of how annoying they were and felt a little better.

"Oh yeah, Cartman's had a thing for her since we were kids. You ever notice how bad things tended to happen if she was dating Stan? It was like his own version of a period. This way."

Craig could remember enough of Red's home to know he was being led around and through groups of people to the kitchen. "Okay. That makes sense at least. But Wendy? I don't see it."

Kenny shrugged. "Well, she had a thing for him when we were younger. I guess she figured it would go away if she ignored it. Didn't really work out like that though."

Craig dodged a girl running out from the kitchen, clearly running to the closest place that was appropriate to throw up in, and frowned at her in distaste. "How the hell d'you even know all of that?"

"Guess I have a lot of free time," Kenny grinned "and Bebe likes to gossip. She can read Wendy like a book. Well, probably better than a book, I don't think she actually reads."

Inside the kitchen a group of people were stood and sat in a vague circle. Craig recognised Red, leaning on the kitchen table like she owned the place, which she did, with Bebe and Annie either side. Leaning against the work surface on front of the girls were Clyde and Token, the latter looking a little bored with the situation he was in. there were a few others making up the rest of the circle, but Craig didn't really know who they were. In the middle of the group was a bottle pointing at Clyde, who was the only one not giggling over this.

"Okay,"

Red spoke, pushing her almost burgundy hair out of her eyes with a jangley flick, due to the various beads she kept over each wrist. Craig picked out the various bracelets designed with colours from flags of countries that Token had visited recently. "You're dare is to make me laugh."

Clyde pouted to himself as he thought. Red was fairly well known in their school for her ability t stay as moody as Craig when she wanted to. Token seemed a little interested at this point.

After Clyde had been quiet for about a full minute Red asked if he'd give in. He shook his head and bit his lip.

"I have, like, this one joke. I dunno if it'll make you laugh, but se people find it kind of funny." Craig frowned, knowing the joke pretty well. No matter how many times he'd said it when they were kids, Clyde had never failed to laugh.

He trailed off, nervous now that everyone was paying attention to him. Red lifted her eyebrows, as though telling him to continue.

"Okay, so at the exact same time, there are these two guys on opposite sides of the earth. One of them's, like, tight ropping it across two skyscrapers. The other's getting oral, but like, from this old, ninety-something year old whore. And they're both thinking the exact same thing. What are they thinking?"

Red splayed her hands, asking for the punch line sarcastically.

"Don't look down," Clyde kept his nervous expression for the second it took for around half of the group to laugh, while the others winced with distaste. Craig rolled his eyes. He'd already picked out the people who would laugh as Clyde had started talking. That was his joke, damnit!

Red's face remained stony for what Clyde would later probably insist was the tensest moment of his life. She cracked after a second and began to snicker behind the back of her hand.

"Yeah, okay that was alright."

Clyde's grin grew "Thanks, but it's actually Craig's joke."

The laughter in the room faded out awkwardly and Craig's stomach dropped a little and he felt guilty for ruining the atmosphere.

"I bet he did, in fact, I don't doubt he'd go for a 90 year old," Said Annie. Red scolded her and she replied defensively, looking thrilled at the snickers her next comment gained "What? It's not like he'd ever pay for any more than that."

"He's not too bad!" Craig wasn't the only one to look at Clyde with mild surprise "He's just…. Moody." Craig almost felt happy of the thought that there were people in the world like Clyde, who were ignorant enough to believe that people who told their best friends to fuck off on a daily basis were a little moody, still in the world.

"I'll say!" bebe crossed her arms as she spoke "d'you know what he said to me?"

Red interrupted Annie's cry of "what'd he say?" with a "can we not talk not talk about that tight bastard? It's Christmas, I don't wanna hear about a guy who doesn't even smile on his birthday."

"Red's right," Spoke Token "He's might be 'moody' as hell, but he has the right to live his life the way he wants."

Craig turned to Kenny. "Is that everything? Coz I've seen enough."

Kenny sighed, but let him walk away. "You know that they were sticking up for you, right? In their own ways."

"Mmm hmm," Craig replied "sure." He supposed he should be grateful that Clyde still tried to be nice to him. With Tweek and Kenny that made three people. It was a start.

It made him a little sad to think about Tweek after hearing so many negative things about himself. He wondered if Tweek ever thought about him like that.

In the living room Cartman was blatantly cheating at blind man's bluff to chase Wendy around the house.

"Put it this way," They reached the door. "They like- well, respect, more- you enough to not want to bitch about you."

He figured that was a little more comforting.

They left the crowds of Red's house behind as they continued on along the road. It was getting very cold now, and Kenny looked worn out. They turned a corner and along the road Craig could see two small children waiting on the curb.

He was prepared to ignore them, but as they passed the children stood and walked in pace with the pair.

"Who are they?" Craig muttered.

"Usually they would be my brother and sister, but while they are here, she is want, and he is ignorance," they were pale and weak, with bitter, staring eyes that darted around in blank glances and mean, thin lips. Craig had seen both of Kenny's siblings before, albeit a long time ago, and it seemed as though he was being presented with twisted and hollow forms of their former selves. "You should be weary of both of them."

"What do they do?" Kenny was walking away now, a hand on each child's shoulder, and he called back over his shoulder with a grin, still walking away.

"Who knows? They sure do have a lot of free time though, and 'time is money', as we all know…."

Craig closed his eyes as Kenny faded away. The cold was growing along with a mist that surrounded him. When he reopened his eyes it was dark, and he was alone, save for the dark, hooded figure that was approaching him from a distance.


	4. Chapter 4

The figure approached him slowly and morbidly, one slow and heavy step after the other. The spirit was clouded and obscured with fog and cloaked in darkness. Craig shivered to himself, forcing his hands to stay in his pockets to keep him looking as calm as possible. It also kept him slightly warmer within the chilling atmosphere.

"K-Kenny? Is that you?" his voice sounded loud and rude, making him cringe as it cut though the dark with it's nasally tone, and he felt as though he was interrupting the phantom's sacred quiet.

He regretted calling out, having thought of the only permanently hooded person he knew. It was silly, Kenny had just left and now he felt as though he'd offended the spirit. Deep down he knew what it was that this cloaked spirit had to symbolise to him. The melancholic figure was a little more familiar to Craig than it should be to a seventeen-year-old teenage boy, but then he did live in the same village as Jesus. It wasn't so unheard of in South Park for Death to be spotted haunting his latest victim around the town.

Craig gulped as the spirit arrived before him, gliding to a chillingly smooth stop. "He-Hello," he said quietly, unsure of what else to do. Every ounce of anything within him was screaming at him to run and shrinking away and pulling back from the icy ghost, but the logic of his mind told him that wouldn't work. He kept his face down, terrified of what was in front of himself.

They stayed locked within the terrible silence for too many minutes to count, with Craig desperately trying to fight the dread crawling down his spine, taking over his body and freezing up his responses. The spirit couldn't speak- or if it could, it did it's very best not to-, he knew that, but he didn't know if he could quite bring himself to be the first to break the deafening lack of noise that thickened the air around them.

He forced himself to pull in a breath of the freezing silence suppressing the air around him and used the movement from that to force him to raise his eyes to look directly into the emptiness of the other's hood.

"You're the third spirit, of Christmas future," He stated. He didn't ask it as a question because he knew that the words he spoke were the answer.

His nasally voice interrupting and tearing through the eerie silence made him want to squirm, but the Spirit simply lifted the folds of cloth where his left arm could be, and gestured for the two of them to begin their journey.

Craig shuddered now, able to move, and walked in pace with the Spirit's gliding. He'd always found Scrooge rather whiny in this chapter- just the way he seemed to need to comment on everything and didn't understand that the Spirit would not reply really irked Craig. Craig intended to avoid sounding like that if he could help it.

They didn't seem to be walking back into South Park, it looked more as though the mist around them had thickened into the familiar buildings that Craig had grown up with and knew so well. His dread grew as they approached the cemetery. It couldn't be time for that yet, and surely it would be different for him than it had been for Scrooge? He wasn't entirely sure what the cemetery scene even symbolised as Scrooge should have known that someday he would die. But either way, Craig was fairly sure he was too young to die, and he already understood everything he had to earn here. He wouldn't die so soon, would he?

Instead of relief he felt numbness where the dread had been when they slowed completely to a stop next to the Goth kids. It was probably the only time he would be anything near glad to see them.

"No," the girl of their group drawled out with the smoke of her cigarette as she exhaled in a sigh. "I haven't heard all that much about it," she was leaning against the bench they mostly occupied, talking over her shoulder to the tall one, Ethan, who was sat, rigid, almost like a Victorian gentleman, on the bench. "Aside from what everyone else already knows."

"Hmm. I'm pretty sure Red went to class today to see if he could hear anything. We'll see what he says, I guess," It took Craig a few seconds of frowning to remember which one was 'Red', and that they weren't referring to the girl, Rebecca, that he'd grown up with. He remembered Dylan, the short one who dyed the top part of his hair red to hide his re-growth from the black dye. Red dye was vaguely cheaper than black- Craig would know- and so could be replenished more often than the black. Apparently this boy shared the nickname 'Red' with Rebecca amongst his friend. Craig was almost tempted to bet with the spirit that the Goth kids insisted that they had come up with the nickname first. A quick glance to his left at the ominous Ghost squashed all urges of being friendly.

The only other thing that Craig knew about Dylan was that He'd been held back to Craig's year, but, like the rest of his friends, was rarely, if ever, seen in class.

"No luck," Craig was the only one to jump a little when Dylan arrived, seemingly materialising from nowhere, as though he were a spirit himself. "They all know he's dead. Nobody knows why, how, they barely even know where it happened. Conformist idiots."

He slumped onto the bench with a scowl and crossed arms, leaning against Ethan and flicking a pale hand out moodily. Ethan raised an eyebrow but handed him the cigarette he'd just lit and pulled out a fresh one for himself from a little box hidden in the front pocket of his old coat.

He pulled in a deep breath of smoke as though he was breathing in life. "I swear, you guys are never making me go in for a full day ever again."

"That bad?" Henrietta drawled while turning to face them, leaning on her folded arms over the back of the bench, graceful in movement despite her weight. Craig thought it might have been down to the tears along the edges of her long clothes, and the various strands and straps that he couldn't see any point in hanging from her dress, but there was also something to the way she carried herself. It was a little like a dancing ballerina. A dead, dancing ballerina, of course.

Dylan sighed. "That asshole Garrison made us watch six episodes of three different, yet equally shitty soaps, and then compare them for plot development," Dylan sat up a little and waved his arms about, clearly impersonating Mr Garrison. "Or some bull like that. And apparently I had to put extra effort in, since I've 'been a little absent recently'. Conformist." He sat back with a huff, leaning his head back onto Ethan's shoulder and tilting his head up so he could blow smoke out to the night sky. Ethan simply regarded him with raised eyebrows, as though used to the routine of being all but sat on.

"Georgie," Henrietta spoke softly, acknowledging the fourth one as he, the youngest member of their group, joined them. He nodded to the other three without raising his eyes from the floor, moving and shuffling about like a little zombie. Dylan kicked him in the shin, and he pulled out his earplugs, spilling what sounded like loud white noise to Craig out for the rest to hear. Henrietta seemed to smile and motioned for Georgie to pass her on of the earphones that he was listening to as he sat on the ground by her feet.

"You hear anything from Broflovski's brother?"

He shook his head. "Only what we already know." His voice was very soft and gentle, almost unheard under the metallic music coming from the device in his pocket, but Craig still felt as weary of him as the others.

The group were quiet for a while after that, aside from the loud songs they all listened to. Craig had to admire how they stuck together and supported each other in their own, creepy little ways.

"Seems like he just collapsed then," Henrietta spoke with a sigh to her uncaring tone when the noise from the headphones ended. She handed them back to the kid, making it clear that she only really wanted to listen to that one song. They had important things to discuss after all, like deaths, and funerals. They weren't talking about Craig, were they?

Both Ethan and Dylan watched her move, with matching expressions of boredom. "Looks like. Heart attack, maybe? Or perhaps he was ill." Craig frowned. Was he in hospital?

Dylan sighed heavily. "Or maybe he was just so empty that he twisted up and withered away into nothing, and the adults don't know how to explain it to all of the little kids." He closed his eyes and Henrietta lips formed a twisted smile.

"What beautiful notion."

They stayed quiet for a while after that, and Craig eventually looked to the spirit, wondering if they would be moving on now. He was a little chilled to see that its head was inclined towards him. The thought that the Ghost was watching him with hidden eyes was a little more than sinister. They didn't move, so possibly there was more.

"Think we knew him well enough to go to the funeral?" Craig's stomach dropped. They couldn't be talking about him. Ethan laughed a little coldly at Dylan's question.

"Think anyone'll care if we're the only ones there?"

Dylan smirked a little. "Looks like we've got a funeral to attend, guys."

"Goodie," Henrietta hissed with sarcastic glee. She made the perfect portrait of a witch clapping her hands with the joy of a new evil plot.

Now the spirit moved, lifting its cloaked arm once more for them to continue their journey. Soon enough they lost sight of the teens to the eerie mist around them.

As they walked- or glided, in the Spirit's case- Craig tried to think who it could be that had died. He knew that as he was playing the part of Scrooge it was probably him, but his life wasn't a book, and he wasn't old enough to die. Looking at the Goths, it seemed like they were only a year or so into the future. Maybe his lesson would be someone he cared about dying? Tweek. His heart squeezed tightly and painfully as he thought of the blonde. It wouldn't shock anyone if Tweek suddenly collapsed due to the strain of…. Well, life. He stopped walking, and the Spirit turned back again to watch him stand still. He shook his head and started walking again, more to stop the phantom looking at him than anything else.

They mist swirled and thickened again, forming into more clear building-type shapes. The road was familiar; they were walking along the street outside of the school. They didn't stop, but Craig looked into the windows and spotted most of his English class looking as gloomy as the current weather. His seat was empty, he noticed, and the feeling of dread grew within him once more, but so were several others. Pip's seat was empty, and Damien's entire table seemed to be missing, and a few other people weren't there, but Craig didn't notice anymore than that because Tweek's seat was missing it's occupant, and then they'd passed the school and it was too late for him to look again. He bit his lip, a little scared. It was only a guess that Tweek was dead, but…. What if it was true?

They continued on through the streets in tense silence, with Craig's unease growing steadily with each step. The air was grey and dank , and people rushed about from place to place, desperate to get home where it was warm and they might feel a little more like it really was Christmas. Out here in the dim light the Christmas lights looked tacky and foolish. Craig wrapped his arms around himself in an attempt to stop the chill that was making him shake a little. He was glad when they began moving towards a particular, large building.

It looked very similar to a hospital and had the same clinical and sterile feel to it, only Craig found it a lot more depressing today than usual. He was confused as to where they were, they couldn't be in a hospital as the only hospital in or near South Park was Hell's pass, and it was a much larger building than this. Craig was fairly familiar with Hell's Pass, and this wasn't it.

They walked along an unending corridor, turning ever so often, and eventually moving slowly down some dark stairs. Craig gulped as they entered a room he knew all to well from films and TV shows. They were in the pathology unit of a morgue.

They moved past tables covered with white cloths covering them, a few where the cloth lay flat on the table but more often than not there was something hidden underneath, and Craig's arms tightened around himself, unsure whether to look or try and ignore the rest of the room.

He gulped once more as he saw a boy dressed all in orange. There was no cloth over him, clearly the doctors were waiting to see if he would just wake up and get up off of the trolley this time around. Craig shuddered at the idea of waking up in this place, surrounded by dead bodies on a regular basis, and his stomach lurched in pity for Kenny.

The spirit stopped moving, and Craig nearly walked into him, stopping himself from moving just in time. The idea of walking into this ghost made him feel as though someone had thrown a bucket of ice-cold water over him.

The phantom motioned with a swoosh of black cloth towards the body on the trolley they were stood by. Craig swallowed and took a deep breath. The phantom continued to point at the body.

Craig lifted his arm a little towards the nearest corner of white cloth, but stopped and left his hand hovering in the air. He trembled at the thought of seeing a dead body, let alone his own or the body of someone he knew. He slowly lowered his arm and shook his head.

"I- I can't," his eyes were the widest they'd ever been. The spirit moved his arm and pointed again. Craig shook his head. "No, I can't! There has to be some other way for you to show me? There was in the book."

The phantom turned his head a little, and fixed its nonexistent eyes onto Craig. He dug his fingernails into his arms, certain that he was about to be subject to some ungodly torture for having defied the way of the Spirits, and when the Ghost moved he squeezed his eyes shut. He blinked feeling a little silly, especially as the Phantom was merely moving the folds of material about where his head should be in a nodding gesture. He shook his head as he followed the ghost out of the unit, glad to leave.

As they left the building he looked up through the darkening mist and spotted a sign reading "Denver Mortuary." He shuddered again, and vowed never to go there again, until it was necessary.

There were less people about now, and many of them stopped in twos or threes to chat a little before rushing off into the cold again. Craig was able to catch fragments of their conversations as he passed, but he had to pull his hat off to free his ears.

"- Heard he could've had help if he'd just been with someone. His sister, or a friend-"

"Don't be silly, he didn't have any friends-"

"-Still I wonder what killed him?"

"They don't know yet, do they? Apparently he was found by the McCormicks-"

"After their lot had a say about the things he had with him of course-"

"-I always thought the McCormicks were very respectable for their position-"

"Oh they are, it's the other lot they live around that I'm worried about-"

Craig shook his head and pulled his hat back on, not wanting to hear anymore. It seemed this person had died alone, and not only that, they'd been robbed, too. They continued on and the mist thickened.

Craig finally found he fully recognised the streets he was walking along, this was the street that most people at his school lived on. He'd been here earlier with Kenny. He was too curious at this point to grumble about being taken into Stan's house again.

It was quiet. Not the confining, sharp quiet he'd been trapped in with the spirit. This was an open, chosen silence. Everyone in the room seemed to be feeling the same way, and they were almost companionable to each other for it.

"-The streets are lined with little creatures, laughing-" they followed sounds of music into the living room. They passed Stan and Kyle in the kitchen looking down and talking to Cartman and Wendy. Craig noted the Wendy gripping Cartman's hand. It was change to Stan's hand, and not a bad one either. "-Everybody seems so happy have I possibly gone daffy, what is this?" he was pleased he was still able to recognise the song.

The party of people he saw had definitely seen better days. In fact, they'd been in a better mood a few hours ago by his timescale. His eyes raked the group and quickly settle on Tweek, sat in almost the same place as the last time he'd seen him, half watching the film on screen. He immediately felt relief coursing through him, his lungs and stomach felt less constricted, and his muscles relaxed, though he hadn't realised he'd tensed them in the first place. He slowly moved closer to Tweek, trying to look subtle in front of the Phantom.

There was a knock on the door. Clyde, who was sat upside down, hanging off of the couch in his preferred way of seating, poked Token in the arm with his foot. Token paused the film, and they looked over to the doorway where Kenny walked in with Kyle, who was clearly developing a clingy side in whatever emotional plight it was affecting Craig's ex-friends, clutching at him. Token jumped up and Clyde tried to imitate his movements, but tumbled backwards off of the sofa. Tweek had sat up a little straighter.

"Oh shit, you're back already?" Clyde spoke from the floor. Kenny nodded.

"I have a few favours," Craig wondered if Kenny meant to look at him then "Look who I dragged out with me," he gestured over his shoulder with his thumb at a dark shadow following him.

The shadow lifted its head then, revealing itself as Damien. Craig was shocked by the hopeless look covering his face, his usual anger hidden behind it.

"Hey man," said Token, gently, as if comforting. Clyde nodded along with a bitten lip, clearly too scared of the antichrist to make a comment. There was quiet again after that.

"Did you…. See him?" Stan broke the silence and Kenny nodded slowly. Craig stepped slightly closer to the conversation, desperate to know who they were talking about. In the corner of his eye he could see Tweek trembling a little more so than usual.

"Yeah, I did." The look in Damien's eyes was almost painful, and he turn to glower at the floor, his breathing heavier than usual "he, uh…. He says hi," Kenny chuckled under his breath. "And um…. Well, he just wants us to move on, I s'pose. Especially you." Kenny turned to Damien and poked him in the stomach.

Craig tensed up, prepared to jump out of the way of the anti-christ's wrath in the way that he was practised from years of walking past the devil's son in corridors filled with unintelligent children who had yet to learn what would happen if they walk in Damien. But nothing happened. Damien just flicked his eyes up to Kenny's, filled with a sarcastic glare. He batted the others hand away, and moved to a corner and began to fill the surrounding area with a depressing darkness that Craig was unused to seeing around the other. Usually he made the air around himself teem with anger and hatred, if not just simple fear, but the energy for that seemed missing.

Craig pulled away from the miserable sight to the rustling coming from his left. Kenny was at the centre of the group, spreading messages from the mysterious person who held so much force over the sad atmosphere. The interest his friends held made him certain that they were definitely not discussing himself. He doubted that his death would affect people like this, as he was.

It was a stark contrast to the person the Goth kids had sat describing on their dark bench outside the cemetery. Had they been wrong? Or was it just their hatred for everything that breathed differently to themselves that lead them to see this person in such a way?

The rustling turned to shuffling, and Craig focused now on Tweek, who was fidgeting to himself, clearly trying to decide upon something. He jumped up at one point, then shrunk back into his place on the sofa. His eyes were trained on the floor, but he squeezed them shut tightly for a moment longer before jumping up again, looking decisive. Behind Tweek's semi-determined expression, Craig could quite clearly see a similar pain to Damien's loitering to the back of his eyes. This person's death had clearly hit him too, as much as the others, if not more.

Craig blinked, a little confused by the ache in his chest. Could it be that he seriously wanted to comfort Tweek? He considered the possibility that he might be looking forward to this death to give him the opportunity to help the other, and even just if he could be supportive of his friends. He slowed his thinking a little, unwilling to let himself get too emotional in front of Death.

He watched Tweek nervously skitter across the room, before being caught up by the elbow by Kenny, who seemed to be finished spreading the joy- misery would probably be a better description judging by the sombre attitude everyone, even Clyde, had now adopted- and wanted to say something to Tweek.

Craig stepped closer to the two of them, and in that time missed the start of this conversation, but managed to catch the general message. The spectre followed him, and Craig was fairly certain it wasn't because it wanted to hear the topic, which freaked him out a little.

"He's in Heaven?" Tweek spoke with a startled cry and Kenny stifled a laugh.

"I'm…. not sure if I should answer that. I might've had to get this out of Damien, or maybe he told me directly," Kenny shrugged. Craig got the feeling that Kenny didn't want Tweek to know what had happened to this person. Call him negative but it sounded like they were in hell. Maybe it was him, and Damien was just pissed off that he'd been stuck seeing Craig every time he visited his father.

Either way, Kenny didn't seem willing to reveal to Tweek what was happening to this person, did that mean this person meant something to Tweek?

So many questions. And a Ghost that refused to speak to him.

"Anyway, from what I've heard, he's sorry. And he misses you."

Tweek nodded, eyes still stuck to the floor. Kenny stood next to him for a second, before patting Tweek on the shoulder, and they both moved on.

Tweek's shoulders were tense, and he'd wrapped his arms around his body once he reached Damien.

"Um, hi," He said, tentatively. Damien sighed heavily.

"No, I'm not okay, no, I don't want to talk about it and yes it really, really sucks." Even Craig couldn't miss the hitch in Damien's voice on the second 'sorry'. "And thank you for being sorry. That makes me feel so much better."

Tweek blinked, looking a little like someone had pointed a gun at him. Well, a little more like 'insert person A here' had a gun pointed at them. Craig very much doubted that Tweek would be so calm if he had a gun pointed at him.

"Th-that's not why I'm here- I- I mean, I am- gah- sorry, but, I- I liked Pip…." Tweek trailed off, and Damien winced, clenching his fists with the look of someone who'd heard condolences far too many times.

Craig had to hold back the hand that wanted to swat his forehead as Tweek's words sunk in. Pip! He'd been sick, hadn't he? And obviously he was too nice for Hell, meaning Damien…. Would never see him again. Craig felt what had been left frozen in his heart melt and thaw with an icy chill as he realised Damien's full plight.

"Didn't we all," his voice was dry and emotionless. He wanted the conversation to be over so he could go back to brooding.

"B-but I didn't re-really wanna talk about th-that," The conversation was clearly making Tweek nervous from the amount of stuttering he was doing. Damien sighed.

"Oh, right. You're little friend. Yeah, he says hi." Damien pushed himself off of the wall, planning to leave. Tweek panicked a little and muttered what he'd been trying to say. Damien raised his eyebrows, and Craig, unseen, stepped closer to the two off them to hear what he was saying.

"What?"

"I said he's like Pip!" Tweek called out n a mad rush. He opened his eyes wide, looking at the reaction he'd been granted. Damien was stood in the same place, eyebrows raised in anticipation, as though poised, curious as to whether his next move would cause Tweek pain or not.

Craig knew he would attack Damien if he tried to hurt Tweek, be it an effective move or not.

"O-okay, so I guess I'm m-ngh-more like Pip than he is, bu-but I know how you feel. I- I think that's what I'm trying to s-say," Tweek trailed off, closing his eyes and pulling lightly at his hair. Damien leant against the wall once more.

"Kay."

"Mmm," Tweek squeaked.

That meant there were two dead then. Craig wondered if Tweek'd wanted to talk to Damien because he could trust the other to understand him.

"I didn't know you saw him that way," Damien spoke gruffly. Tweek jumped, but nodded. Damien laughed without humour. "Let him know when I next see him."

Tweek's eyes widened and a light blush covered his cheeks.

Craig could feel his pulse.

The shadow at the corner of his eyes shifted away. He turned his head to the spirit's back and gulped. It was headed for the door, and he felt a sense of ending from their movements as he followed.

"This is the last vision, isn't it?" there was no movement, but Craig knew anyway.

They stepped out, back into the cool air, and walked through and along grey streets. There was no one about to bother them, and if a person was there, they skimmed along the edge of the fog, hidden and out of site.

Craig didn't think about where they were going, the journey familiar and easy, he was busy considering the things he had seen. He only began to take in his surroundings when they reached his road, and it was there that he almost lost the spectre once more.

The shadow had stopped a few metres behind him, and now as he watched, it lifted its sleeve, slowly, gradually, to point to the cemetery. Craig shook his head, slowly as he was entrapt by the spectre's movement, but then quicker and quicker as he realised.

"No. No."

The ghost stood still, as if to force its point upon him.

"I live over there, why are you pointing there?" he spoke as though clueless of what would happen next. He wondered if it would annoy the Ghost, if it had feelings at all.

And still, the spectre stood, as tall and fierce as death.

"B-but I-" there was no use, he knew that. This spirit would have no reason to listen to him, and it wouldn't change his fate either way. He walked to the ghost, one reluctant step at a time, and followed it into the cemetery as he arrived to its side.

He must love it here, he thought sulkily, just to make himself feel better, but regretted it as soon as the ghost turned its eyeless hood towards him. He felt a chill run down his spine and spoke a silent apology.

The place had, over time, been squashed in and surrounded by houses as the ever-growing buildings of South Park demanded every inch of space they could pull up. He hoped that they would be stopping only at Pip's space, but also wondered about the second person, the one that Tweek had mentioned. Deep down he was denying to himself who it really was.

Everything here was overrun with clumps of grass hidden by the deep, undisturbed snow. It was a difficult terrain to cross, and Craig grew envious of the spirit's ability to glide.

The walls enclosing the area were falling apart, ruined by years of water melting and freezing at them, and every now and then there was a fresher patch, where snow hadn't quite been left to build up like the rest of the graves.

He could feel it was a few days after this ghost had first shown him the visions. The air was different, and the weather, too. Also, this person had been buried, if they were here to visit his grave, and the Goth children had been discussing how they would enjoy the funeral.

They stopped at a patch of disturbed snow, and Craig swallowed the lump of nerves building in his throat.

"Before I look," Craig's tone was gentle, more gentle than he'd ever let it be before, but he put that down to the fear of what he would see next "this…. Everything here. It's not what must happen, is it? Just what could happen, right?"

The spirit didn't even twitch.

"Nothing? Not even if I ask nicely? A nod would suffice. No? Okay then," he sighed and crouched down by the gravestone, its slight tilt making him wonder if someone had leant on it, or perhaps kicked it. The tilt meant that the latest snowfall had covered it with a light, thin layer, which had to be scraped at to reveal the name hidden.

His curiosity at being able to move the snow blanked the need to read the name right away. He waited until the name was completely cleared out, ignoring the familiarity of the curve to each letter, the name that he now had to read. Craig Tucker.

Craig Tucker.

He was empty as he read that. He had one year. He couldn't just have one year.

"No," he muttered "No, why would you show me this, why would you show me if it can't be helped?"

the spirit stood, stony as ever, and simply raised it arm, swapping once between the grave and himself. Craig had fallen back, onto the floor now, he didn't know when that had happened, but he looked up with wide, pitiful eyes, and begged.

He hadn't begged for anything, ever.

"Please, you can already see it, I'm different, I've changed. I want to change, I want to help, I want-" he caught himself, but then turned back to the spirit "I want to see Tweek."

The Ghost stayed, unmoving before him.

"And my mother and sister. Heck, I'll talk to my father. But I want to talk to Clyde, and Token, and Kenny, and everyone I know. Can't you see that? I want to see them, and talk to them, and let them have a good time, doesn't that count for anything?" he'd thought of something new now. he could help them, all of them, even Pip, with what he'd seen tonight.

The Spectre seemed to swell up a little, as though to take in a deep breath, and then shrunk and diminished, reducing into nothingness, drying up and twisting into the end of his bed.

He shot up and looked around at his plain, boring bedroom, and was pretty sure it was the clearest, warmest thing he'd ever seen.


	5. Stave 5

The first realisation to hit him was that it was warm. Judging by the cloth surrounding him he was back in his bed, but he didn't want to open his eyes to find out. Just in case he'd died, or something.

The second realisation that came to him was that it must, finally, be Christmas day. If he was still good to go, that was, and the spirits hadn't enslaved his soul for no apparent reason. Even he had to admit that was a little unlikely, seeing as one of the spirits had been Kenny.

The third realisation came along a few minutes later, as he was scanning through all that had happened in his head. He was curled up on his side, a blanket having made its way over his face. It was really difficult to concentrate, he would think through one scene with his Grandma, or a conversation he'd witnessed with Kenny, but be lead off within his head to anther situation, stem off on a thought of what was going on and what it all meant, and be stuck trying to remember what he'd originally been thinking of.

He'd managed to concentrate long enough to focus on that final vision featuring Tweek speaking with Damien when the thought hit him.

There had been two deaths his- he hesitated slightly before using the word- friends had been affected by. Pip's and, judging by the conversations held by the Goth children along with the words on his grave (which was disappointingly plain, he'd have to complain about that in later life), his own were the deaths being discussed. And then, before he could stop himself, he remembered Tweek comparing the two of them to Pip and Damien's relationship.

He brought his hands up to his face, to cover up his burning cheeks. He still had a face then. That was always encouraging.

What did Tweek's little half confession mean though? He pushed against his eyelids. Being who he was he couldn't be bothered going through the whole "does he, doesn't he" girly crap. He'd probably just walk up to Tweek a little later and declare the two of them elope to France. The thought made him wince and giggle at the same time. That probably wouldn't end well, Craig hated French people and Tweek hated travel. Plus neither ever paid attention in French class.

Craig opened his eyes for around the fifth time that night, slowly this time, enjoying the pleasant way he now viewed the world. He found the stars shining from the gap in his curtains enchanting, the soft pressure from the bed sheets around him was supple and comforting, and as for the-

No.

Was that really how he had to act if he wanted to be nice? No way. It wasn't happening. Unless he was to vomit over the general populace every few minutes, he was not in any way going to loose any part of his sarcasm. He sat forward and rubbed at his glabellum and temples. He was so taking this one step at a time, in baby steps, as it were. No matter how Christmas carol-y his life was getting, it wasn't exactly some stupid film montage.

His eyes shot open as he sat up straight. His film storyboards! He had to find them!

It was four-thirty in the morning, but he felt fairly well rested as he darted around his bedroom, clearing out his half empty closet and emptying his desk draws. He was impressed by his concern for his sister and mothers sleep pattern as he cluttered around. He reasoned how awake he felt now was down to the sleep he'd been getting in between each 'chapter', as it were, and eventually found the old, scrappy barely held together notebooks hidden away at the back of his sock draw.

He spent around an hour flicking though them, flicking through each book, grinning to himself and occasionally laughing when the plotline got too ridiculous for even him to handle. At one point he pulled a pen out from the inside of his bag and added to a couple of the more unfinished pages.

Once he'd gone through all of them he piled them up and carefully placed them on his desk in a neat rectangular box shape in front of his chair.

He looked about his now messy room, and began to put away the objects and clothes strewn about his floor neatly. He was at a slight loss of what to do, not just for now or for the day, but for general, in life. He doubted he could waltz into Stan's house, or wherever it was he'd been shown last night, without being kicked out. Maybe Kenny would bring him in. Craig bit his lip. It did seem that being mean to people had a few disadvantages then.

He thought of his family as he refolded his clothes. They were still quiet and sleeping, meaning his running around hadn't disrupted ether of them. He wondered if he could spend the day with them, but was struck with a general feeling of shyness.

For one he would have no idea what to say to any of them, and that made it fairly clear that they, too would probably not have a clue of what to say to him. That didn't seem very Christmassy to Craig. And besides, if he did something nice for them, there would still be his father sat, getting drunk in Denver. What could he do for that prick?

He sighed heavily and shut his eyes, leaning up against the wardrobe, resting his forehead against his hand.

That had sounded like old Craig, filled with excuses and reasoning, but not helping anyone in the slightest. He tried to think of a way around that, but he really did feel awkward about the idea of spending time with his family. Were there any other ways to be nice without showing his face?

He could think of one way, but it involved parting with his beloved money. However, he found as he was placing the last of his clothes away and shutting his cupboard door, that didn't really sound so terrible anymore.

He walked out of his room and took a quick shower, dressing in completely new clothes and grabbing some pop-tarts as he left the house. It was just gone six in the morning and he had no idea whether there would be any shops open other than convenience stores and petrol stations, but he'd have to make do with what he could find.

Baby steps.

It was a little closer to eight-thirty once he arrived back at his house. He'd been right about the amount of shops that were open today, and had almost been reduced to buying his mother vegetables for her Christmas present before he managed to track down a small family run shop that had braved to be open on Christmas morning and he'd been able to pick up a few nice things which he now sat in his living room and wrapped.

He could honestly say that he was a total disaster with wrapping paper. No matter how hard he tried to manipulate the gifts, paper and tape into those nice, attractive box-shaped packages always being shown off in films and family albums, it just was not happening. For starters the paper wouldn't stay folded into place. By the time he managed to work out how to hold the paper and stick it down without loosing both hands to the scissors the tape had mutated into a mad wheel of no longer sticky plastic. Craig glowered at it and threw away the misshaped ball of crumpled gift paper and cursed the moment he'd chosen not to use gift bags.

How did people do this every year? It was ridiculous. Just looking at the presents made him think of the wrapping paper again, which ultimately left him filled with rage. He took a deep breath and tried to think of alternatives. There were gift bags in the guest room- which had been his parents room until Craig's father left, at which point his mother chose to move into the study and redecorate the room into a guest room- and they would just make do with one of those.

At least they looked half presentable in the second hand gift bags, a little ribbon tied around the handles that was more just for the sake of keeping the bags shut, but he supposed that the bow he'd made was quite nice. He pushed them under the tree and surveyed his work. There was a card each too, his sisters making the deal that if she wasn't a brat this year he'd buy her the phone she wanted for her birthday.

He could hear movement from upstairs, and at the sound of Ruby calling a "happy Christmas" to their mother he snuck towards the door to leave. He couldn't stop the small smile on his lips though.

"Craig?" damnit, he was so close to leaving and not being rude today. He turned and saw his mother at the top of the stairs, her hair loose and mussed up over her dressing gown and nightdress.

"Mhm?" she rubbed at her eyes and stifled a yawn.

"You're out for the day?" he nodded. Behind her Craig could hear Ruby whooping at the magic being revealed from this years stocking. "Okay then, have a nice day."

"Mum," He blurted out before she could leave him. She turned back, almost expectantly, and maybe even a little hopeful. He sighed, very lightly. "Happy Christmas."

She smiled down at him, and he was fairly sure it was the same smile his grandma had shown him many times, and the same smile he got when he saw Tweek.

"Merry Christmas."

He smiled bashfully at the floor and opened the front door.

"Oh, and tell the brat," he motioned towards Ruby's cries of joy "I said hi." His mum nodded and waved over her shoulder. He left the house, feeling relief over his nerves. It struck him that that was probably the first time he'd been nice in a few years.

Now for the last challenge before he'd taken care of the family matter this year.

He pulled his phone from the denim pocket of his jeans and pushed at it, growing a little irritated when it froze and occasionally refused to acknowledge his touch. He couldn't have just bought a new one when this one started screwing up on him, could he?

Eventually the command went through and he took a deep breath, insisting he stay calm throughout the duration of this call. He didn't entirely know why he was doing this.

"Hello?" the voice was groggy and disgruntled, but Craig recognised it though they hadn't spoken in a long time.

"Hi," He had to pause before the next word "…. Dad."

He felt funny after the conversation. Treating his…. Dad like they were…. Well, maybe not buddies, but at least on speaking terms, was definitely new.

Okay, so if he thought about it he hadn't exactly been nice, but he was at least civil. Like dealing with a business client, or some such interesting thing.

He'd instructed his dad to drive down to South Park with presents- if there were any- and apologies. Again, assuming there were any. The call hadn't been long, just a little half-rant from Craig, completed by the "kay" from his father at the end. Craig was now totally happy to move on with his life.

Except for the part where he had no idea what to do right now.

He continued to wonder through and around South Park, looking for inspiration. The town was as pretty as ever, but that only lead to artistic inspiration, which he wasn't all that accustomed to. Maybe he could by a pad of paper and note down some film ideas for several hours at Stark's pond or something.

Nah. He wished he had his ipod with him, but the thought of listening to the same soundtrack he'd been listening to for the last few years made his stomach turn a little.

He sighed to complete the overly dramatic-ness of shoving his fists into his pockets. What did people do when they weren't watching Red Racer?

He wasn't paying attention to the blur of purple walking towards him, and so nearly walked into her. As it was they did bump into each other, but he had begun to side step her, so really it was entirely her fault.

"Oft," the wind was knocked out of both of them, but she caught her breath first, apologising over and over.

"Oh gosh, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to- Sorry! Oh-" Craig nearly rolled his eyes as she caught herself. "Hi Craig…."

"Wendy," He nodded in her general direction and her ace coloured over. He wondered if she was embarrassed at having hit into him of all people or was preparing herself to be insulted. They stood for a few moments in awkward silence before he sighed, rubbing at the hair hidden by the back of his hat as he attempted something new. "Where's the fire?"

She fixed him with a look that purely spoke 'is-this-Craig-Tucker-I'm-talking-to-or-has-one-of-us-suddenly-turned-retarded?'. There was a little hint of shock in there too.

"What? I'm in a good mood."

There was the look again. He fixed her with his own stare of "The-hell-are-you-gonna-do-about-it?" and began a stare down.

He won.

"It's nothing," she sighed "My family are just…. We were out walking, we do that, it's kind of like-"

'Yeah, yeah, family thing I wouldn't geddit, go on,' he didn't really get why he wanted to hear her whining. Maybe he'd figured that if he could put up with Wendy, one of the more annoying people in his life, he was good to go with all of the people who were annoying at a regular level.

"Yeah okay, so, we were on this walk and I mentioned that I'd broken up with Stan and that we were just gonna be friends now," her pace had picked up a little, and Craig wondered briefly if this was what it was like to be Bebe or Kenny, and if so, how did they deal with it? "But like, my mum was kind of, not really paying attention, so I like, told her again. But she was all, "I heard you the first time, honey", and I asked why she hadn't said anything, and she just told me that she didn't need t worry about me and Stan-" Craig's mind was distracted at this point as his thoughts were caught up on whether it should be "Stan and I" or just "Stan and me". He settled on "I don't really care" and realised he was still supposed to be paying attention. "- so I told her that I didn't want to spend all my life with Stan, and maybe there might be some else that I like. And then she just laughed! I couldn't believe it, and she told me that I could go for other guys but there was pretty much a guarantee that I would marry Stan and- Ugh! I just lost it and left."

Craig raised his eyebrows at her. She blushed and her eyes widened. She was clearly realising how much of her guts she'd spilt out.

"Sorry," Wendy tried to laugh it off as though she hadn't said anything "I guess I just needed someone to whine at."

"Wendy."

"My, would you look at the time, I'd better be going now," she turned to leave, looking far too happy.

"Wendy."

"Yes, bye Craig, I'll see you at school-"

"Wendy." She stopped, tense, with her face facing the ground. Slowly she turned, taking in a deep breath in.

"Yes Craig?" still facing the floor he noticed.

"Who gives a shit?"

Her eyes flew wide open and hit his with a fairly impressive glare. He also found himself impressed by her ability to roll her eyes and flick her hair at the same time as spinning around. He caught he arm before she could leave and managed to stop her, though she wasn't all that weak.

Clearly her battles with Cartman were paying off.

"No, I mean really. Who gives a damn who you end up dating? You do. And, yeah, who ever the dude you fancy should probably care too," he didn't name Cartman for her sake "And if somebody else does care, you shouldn't give a damn about that. I mean, it's your freaking life. Just go with it."

She stopped resisting and looked thoughtfully at her shoes before nodding. Craig began to walk away then, unsure of what else he could do.

"I- Craig?" Wendy called back "Thanks" she muttered softly.

"Yeah, yeah, happy Christmas," he was all but unconcerned if she'd replied with that, he was far too busy with feeling like a nice person. It was quite a decent feeling, really.

He found he wanted to see if he could be even nicer, and stopped at the nearest twenty four hour supermarket to himself and ordered for some kind of a Christmas lunch to be sent to Kenny's family, as a sort of thanks for his help. It was a bit mismatched seeing as it was Christmas day, but hopefully it'd do.

The store attendant he'd been talking to had given him several odd looks as he'd asked for the food to be delivered, obviously wanting to know why he couldn't just buy the food, seeing as he was at the store. But she didn't seem to care once he'd paid the full price.

After that he was stuck trying to work out what else he could do. Again. He thought of going to Tweek's to have a coffee or something to eat but the thought of seeing Tweek sent a harsh boot of nerves straight at his stomach, knocking out the hunger growing there. That probably wouldn't happen, then. Plus, he was pretty sure they would be closed.

His stomach growled, and he was reminded of Clyde. The boy could eat almost as much as Cartman. He said almost because he could still remember the time Cartman had eaten all of that plastic treasure.

Craig considered the idea of going to Clyde's house. He was pretty near to it- not that anything in South Park was ever far- and they'd probably feed him. If he was nice, which he was pretty certain they all thought he wasn't.

It was just gone ten when he checked the time on his watch. Christmas was the only day of the year that Clyde was suddenly able to wake up incredibly early. He'd probably been up a little later than Craig had in order to demolish the paper neatly hiding his presents, and buy now would be long into attempting to find some use for every single gift. One year Craig had bought him two 10 packs of multicoloured socks, just to see what would happen. A little later he received a text holding a photo of Clyde wearing an even forty socks, complete with the caption, "Challenge accepted".

Apparently his mum had had to text because of the socks Clyde was wearing over his hands.

That memory of that and the thought of Clyde talking to him the day before, at the end of school, encouraged Craig to find the courage to knock on his front door. He smiled politely at Clyde's mum, who commented on how long it'd been since she'd last seen him. He ran up the stairs and knocked on Clyde's open door.

Clyde, of course, fell off of the bed. As he stuttered from the floor, still in pyjamas, Craig announced himself mock-cheerfully, revealing a change in heart and claiming a need to play video games. He slumped onto Clyde's bed and picked up the controller Clyde had been using before totally annihilating the floor-child's previous high score.

"Hey, th-that's mine…."

Okay, so that wasn't too bad, Craig thought as he left the house of his latest victim. They'd played video games and eaten a lot of chocolate and sweets for hours. If he was totally honest it was just like they'd always been friends. Craig had even eaten Christmas dinner with Clyde's family. Or nearly had. He really couldn't express how grateful he'd been when Clyde's mother had told them they could eat upstairs as he had a guest. So they played more video games, and watched more films.

They spoke a little too, which had been more of a catch up session he supposed. Clyde had revealed all of the latest gossip (not that Craig had wanted to know), which mostly seemed very inaccurate, including details of how attractive he thought Red was.

Though most of the information he was receiving seemed fairly useless, he felt somewhat proud that Clyde still trusted him enough to share gossip and bitch with him. He ignored the fact that Clyde would probably trust a truck speeding in his direction if it had an ice cream logo on it.

In return, when Craig was asked in a half mumbled tone why he'd turned 'normal' again, he told the truth. Or half of the truth. He told Clyde all about the ghosts, but left out quite a bit of detail on the visions, and explained it all as though it was a dream.

Half of the way through Clyde had told him he sounded like he was talking about one of his films again. Craig had told him to shut up so he could finish the story, but was secretly quite pleased.

When he was done with his tale Clyde just asked if that meant he was gay for Tweek, at which point Craig thought he'd come up with quite an original substitute for a facepalm by slapping Clyde's forehead instead of his own, causing him to drive his virtual car off of the virtual cliff it had been driving along at high speed. While Clyde whined and rubbed at his head Craig told him it was better than crushing on Rebecca, at which he received an "oh," and the conversation ended there.

Before Clyde had left for Red's he'd offered Craig another invitation at least fifteen times, all of which Craig had turned down much more politely than the first one, but he was risking getting rude again by the time he convinced Clyde he was busy.

And now he was walking slowly to Stan's, nerves growing in his gut for various reasons. He took the very, very, long way round, and 'accidentally' got lost several times. But within half an hour he found himself stood outside of Stan's door, trying to think of something important he might've left at home that he could go and pick up again. Maybe he could fetch Stripe's hamster cage, just in case he needed to re-enact his dream again.

That was possibly the worst idea he'd ever had.

Just as he was about to give up and go home, where he could plan how to be nice to people for two weeks until they got back to school, when the door opened in front of him. He was pretty sure this would be awkward to explain.

"Oh hey Craig," it was Kenny. "you know that present I gave you?" Craig raised his eyebrows. He did not. Kenny repeated the question, this time emphasising the word present, and it clicked in Craig's head that Kenny was the ghost of Christmas present. He nodded slowly. "Well, in that present, Craig was a very miserable dick, and you know what he did? He didn't buy his family any presents, he called Wendy a slut and a whore, and I'm pretty sure he might've gotten annoyed and thrown a rock at Clyde's house. But, even worse than that, he didn't come to Stan's Christmas party!" Kenny's mocking tone was really kind of annoying.

"That's really creepy."

"Just come inside and say hi."

"Yeah okay, but stop following me." He stepped inside, hands once again shoved into his pockets as he played the grumpy card.

"You're in luck, the ghost thing's a one day deal only. Sadly for me," he lead Craig to the living room. "Tomorrow it's back to just not dying. Thanks for the food by the way."

Craig had stopped by the door to the living room, leaning against it's border and pretending he wasn't shy. He shrugged and muttered "what food?"

"Are you just gonna stand there all evening?"

"Yep."

"Well that's inconvenient," Kenny paused, and then, hesitantly, said, "are you scared?"

Craig scoffed "No." Kenny nodded. "But they're gonna look at me."

Kenny rolled his eyes, said, "Look back at them," and left Craig on his own for the company of the living room.

It took him a little while of planning and somewhat encouraging thoughts before he could convince himself to walk into the room. People did look at him as he walked past, but briefly and he was pretty sure he didn't reallycare, as long as no one said anything and he could just peacefully make his way to the sofa before-

"Craig?" shit. Why did Stan always have to ruin his nice, boring day? Dude, what the hell are you doing in my house?"

He knew everyone was looking now; it was one of those crucially awkward moments that could make or break you if you gave a damn about your social status. But he didn't really care because over by the door being reluctantly pulled in by who he thought was Pip- but could have been Kyle who was also stood nearby, he had no idea because he was a little distracted by the person being pulled in- was Tweek, clutching a thermos as expected.

Craig gulped and was pretty sure his eyes were about the same size as Tweek's. He obviously was a little busy to focus on what was coming out of his mouth in response to Stan.

"Damn, thanks Stan, I was wondering why the hell there was so many people in my living room, I honestly thought I was at home but I must've taken a wrong turning on my way back-" he cut off, suddenly rethinking his words and trying to work out if his sarcastic tone would be seen as funny or rude. This kindness thing was really irksome, but at least he hadn't offended anyone yet.

Yet.

There was a little pause before some people began to snicker lightly, and Craig tried smiling to see if that would help his situation any. Seeing Craig Tucker smile seemed to do the trick, and the people around him laughed shortly before returning to their conversations, a little shocked at his possibly new character.

Kenny then came to his rescue, telling Stan he'd invited Craig, and making up something that was apparently funny at Craig's expense as if Stan's laugh was anything to go by. Craig wasn't listening though, as his eyes were once again locked on Tweek's. He took a step or two towards the door where Tweek stood, but with a little "meep" Tweek ran in the opposite direction to Craig.

Craig couldn't help but snicker to himself at that, not because he wasn't a little offended, but because Tweek had looked so much like a mouse just then. Seeing that he was once more I his own company, he returned to journeying to the sofa.

Sitting down, he decided he hated Stan for having such a comfortable sofa. He didn't care if it was unjustified, he didn't really like Stan as it was, and so hating him wouldn't be too much of a change for him to deal with. He really hated the thought of appreciating something to do with Stan, but damn it was a nice place to sit. Craig was even somewhat tempted to try and steal one of the cushions, as long as no one noticed. But then he realised that would mean he would have something of Stan's in his room, and his mind couldn't cope with that.

Stuck deep within his thoughts of sofas and cushions, he had missed the slight detail of people sitting by him on the sofa. So much so, he jumped a little when Pip brightly said "Hello, Craig, haven't seen you in a while!"

He nodded and, prompted a little by Damien's threatening glare, tried to reply as cheerfully as he knew how to. "Hey Pip."

He answered Pip's questions on how his life was and asked the same questions back within his replies. He couldn't stop the smile when he was asked if anything interesting had happened lately, but still replied with "not really".

Seeming to sense that Damien was becoming restless with the lack of attention, Pip told Craig it was nice to speak with him again and spoke instead to the anti-Christ of South Park. Craig tried to give them their privacy and not listen to the conversation they were having- which he was pretty sure consisted entirely of Damien trying to convince Pip that bunny rabbits were made up of pure evil and hatred and even he, the spawn of the devil could not take one down in it's fully evolved state. But Craig couldn't really ignore Pip as a coughing fit hit him mid-laughter and his body convulsed, forcing him to bend over and clutch his stomach. Damien tried his best to help, while Craig tried his best to stay out of the way, in case he made things worse.

That reminded him. Though he was fairly sure he now had longer than a year of life left, Pip didn't there must have been something he could do, in the book Scrooge's money had been what kept Tiny Tim alive. Was that what he had to do? Pay for a treatment? But Pip wasn't poor, and besides, the problem hadn't entirely been Pip's death, it had been the fact that Pip had gone to heaven, the one place Damien was forbidden to enter.

So, the problem was that Pip was too good? Then Craig probably could help him, he figured, rolling his eyes a little. He waited until Pip could breathe normally again before he spoke.

"Hey, Pip?" the two boys sat next to him turned to listen to him, Pip inquisitive, Damien glaring again. Craig thought about the possibility that this could have been his normal, everyday, hello-my-name-is-Damien expression. Thinking about it, Craig probably sported a similar expression when he wasn't being rude. That was probably why people didn't like him in the first place.

The thought made him feel a kind of brotherly connection to Damien, which was easily the most worrying thing to happen all week.

"Yes Craig?"

"Does Cartman still give you shit coz he thinks you're French?"

"Well, yes, I suppose. Why?"

"Okay, well next time that happens you're gonna give him this," Damien twitched as Craig demonstrated how to do a fairly perfect flip off with one's middle finger. "And if he gives you more shit for that, you're gonna tell him to come to me, got it?"

Pip shook his head hurriedly "Oh no, I couldn't possibly-"

"Pip, it's cool. I've got a favour from him anyway, kay? And you gotta promise you'll do it, else I'm gonna be really upset."

Pip agreed eventually to try it out, and catching the ferocious look in Damien's eye, Craig got the feeling that he wouldn't have gotten away with that if he hadn't implied he could beat Cartman up. He wasn't too worried about that, though, he'd fought Cartman before, and won, but he had gotten a little heavier since then….

He shrugged it off knowing that Damien would at least thank him in a year's time. It wasn't much, but hopefully being slightly mean would be enough to condemn Pip's soul.

He was again lost in thought when Tweek was pulled in the room by someone, and that person was quite familiar but that didn't really matter any more because Tweek was there, and holy shit he was being tugged over towards the sofa, and Pip was calling out to him, and crap what if Crag said something mean to him or freaked him out, crap, crap, crap.

Pip scooted over so Tweek could be shoved into a new space in between Craig and Pip. Biting his lip, Craig could now see in a sort of nervous clarity that it was Kenny who'd pulled Tweek over, and then Tweek was sat down next to him so close he could feel the shakes and was kind of glad there was something else moving at a similar speed to his heartbeat.

They each examined their shoes for a moment or two, before Tweek muttered, fairly quietly. "He-hey Craig."

Craig swallowed and willed his voice to not be horrible. "Hi Tweek." He spoke almost as softly as Tweek had. "How've you been?"

"Ngh- o-okay, I gu-guess. You?"

"Fine," Because this conversation wasn't getting painfully mundane. He winced and pushed himself back into the sofa and, sighing, admitted "Okay, that's bull. I've been pretty shitty, actually," his voice was back to it's normal volume, and also hit the same level of sarcasm it always had, but that was okay for once.

Tweek smiled "Yeah, m-me too."

Craig chuckled. "Good to know. Well, no it isn't, but I'm glad it's not just me."

Tweek was smiling, too, which was pretty encouraging.

"Can we also agree that I've been an asshole?" Craig asked softly.

Tweek's eyes widen, and he looked at Craig very closely to see if he joking or not. "N-no not -ngh- really-"

"Oh come on, Tweek," the pace of his heart, which had recently settled quite nicely, spiked as he spotted that Tweek's face still coloured red whenever Craig said his name.

And his stupid heart all but stopped when Tweek's face changed from a small smile to a grin. "Yeah, oka-kay you really were." Craig was pretty sure that was the mark for the two of them becoming friends again.

They spoke for hours, quickly and subtly. It was exactly like befriending Clyde again, only it…. Was totally different. Craig remembered that he always found it strange when he and Tweek had long and detailed discussions about nothing, as neither of them was prone to much talking, so half of the conversation could be made up from expressions, body language or their own traits. He really had missed Tweek without realising, and talking to him again was somewhat like pulling on an old favourite jumper. Or something.

Tweek told him all about gnomes, the coffee shop and how people had forced him to make new friends once Craig had disappeared. It saddened Craig a little to hear about Tweek's side to the story, but he was glad that people had made Tweek get out of his room every now and then, and just the fact that they were already on an okay level to talk about him being horrible made him smile. After Tweek had spent a full twenty minutes detailing everything the gnomes had done since Craig had been gone, Craig told him about the ghost 'dream'. He was glad he could leave out some details, but got the feeling that Tweek was a little suspicious that the dream had been real. He supposed it was a little bit long for a dream, but he knew he would one day tell Tweek the whole thing if he could.

As he finished the ghost tale, Craig's mouth was drying out. He felt thirsty, and Tweek hadn't taken a sip from his thermos recently, meaning it was probably empty. Because He was Craig Tucker, he didn't acknowledge his blush as he pulled Tweek up, and instead told him they were going to get drinks from the kitchen.

It wasn't a long journey to the empty kitchen, but just before he could walk through the door he heard someone, Kyle he thought, maybe, call out his name. He turned around to check, but accidentally walked into Tweek's now still frame. After quickly steadying himself, he checked Tweek to see what was wrong, and followed the blonde boy's gaze upwards to where the mistletoe hung over them. Both of them bit their lips.

"No gnomes this time?" Craig said gently.

Tweek's startled eyes shot down to meet Craig's he half smiled. "No gnomes."

Someone in the living room whooped. Craig was pretty sure it was Kenny, and was also pretty sure Kenny was the person who had put the mistletoe up. Either way, he was also pretty sure he would hit Kenny later.

Craig tried to hide his eyes with the black fringe that framed his now burning face. His head hung heavily as he acted against the nerves sat in his chest and quickly pushed his lips against Tweek's cheek, which he just had time to judge was about as soft as the kiss he'd given Tweek.

Someone cheered, again probably Kenny, and another couple of people in the room who had been paying attention joined in. at which point Craig, growing a little annoyed at being almost on display, grabbed Tweek's left hand in his right and pulled him into the safety of the kitchen.

Craig had to admit, that had been embarrassing, but it made him feel ridiculously…. Happy. And he really didn't want to let go of Tweek's hand, so much so that as they shyly dropped each other's hands he suddenly, in a burst of energy he grabbed Tweek's hand again.

"Tweek, I- help me?"

Tweek blinked "Huh?"

"Can you help me? I really don't want to be horrible again, especially not to you…." He trailed off, focusing on the floor. There was a reassuring squeeze around his palm and he looked up again. "So…. Help?" he tried to look sincere, if such a thing was possible.

Tweek nodded, and Craig found himself laughing softly.

"Thanks."

"No problem," he smiled and squeezed Craig's hand again before pulling away, shy again. Craig sighed, imagining his next move in his head, before mentally swearing and deciding to just go for it.

"Oh, and Tweek?" Tweek started a little as Craig kissed him again.


End file.
